Doing so would require the Russian leader to “accept the failure of sitting down with a president he considers a joke from a country that doesn’t exist”

Just after noon, European leaders including Macron, Starmer, von der Leyen, Rutte, and Meloni began arriving one by one at the White House. According to the White House schedule, Trump will first meet with Zelensky at 1:15 p.m. before greeting the European leaders, followed by a multilateral meeting with all parties at 3:00 p.m.

The European political heavy-hitters were left out of President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday.

President Donald Trump faces significant challenges in getting a meeting scheduled between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A summit in Paris six years ago was the first and only time the two presidents ever met, flanked by French president Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor Angela Merkel. At the time, Putin and Zelensky were looking to hash out a ceasefire deal for war in Donbas in Ukraine’s east, where Russia-backed forces were fighting Ukrainian troops.

Moscow has resisted a Putin-Zelensky summit and security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump’s claims that the Kremlin’s position has changed has left analysts puzzled.

President Trump seeks to broker a meeting of the two leaders to end Europe’s most destructive war in generations.

Russia, Ukraine and European powers have all emerged from meetings with President Donald Trump in support of establishing security guarantees as part of a broader agreement to put an end to the bloody war between Moscow and Kyiv.