President Trump made a series of bold predictions about ending the war in Ukraine on Monday as French President Emmanuel Macron joined him at the White House to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
Speaking alongside Mr. Macron, Mr. Trump said the war was nearing an endgame, asserting that there had been “a lot of progress” has been made on a ceasefire. He also predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would welcome European peacekeepers in Ukraine — despite Russia’s recent statements to the contrary — and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would soon travel to the U.S. and sign a deal giving the U.S. access to his country’s large deposits of lithium and other strategic minerals.
Mr. Macron was the first Western leader to visit Washington since Mr. Trump shook up the stalemated war by holding a long talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month and allowing top U.S. and Russian officials to meet for talks — without Ukraine — in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
The French leader tried to thread a delicate needle on his visit, insisting that both he and Mr. Trump wanted to end the fighting, but added, “We don’t want an agreement that is weak.”
“This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine,” he said. “It must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is due at the White House on Thursday for more Ukraine talks, amid talk in European capitals that they must be ready to fill the void if Mr. Trump curbs or cuts off the massive U.S. military and financial aid to Kyiv.
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“It looks like we are getting very close,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding that Mr. Zelenskyy could come to Washington within the next week or so to sign an amended minerals deal after Kyiv rejected Mr. Trump’s first offer.
Critical week
Mr. Trump’s rosy projections were part of his muscle flex to European leaders, signaling that Washington has taken charge of the peace talks with Russia and they’re superfluous to his plans. It comes as Mr. Trump enters the most critical week for his administration to hammer out a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
But Mr. Putin threw cold water on Mr. Trump’s assertion that he’d welcome European peacekeepers in Ukraine. Mr. Putin said Monday in Moscow that he had not discussed details about resolving the war and neither did the Russian and American teams who met in Saudi Arabia last week.
Mr. Putin added that Russia does not rule out European countries participating in a peace agreement, but his aides say NATO troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers is unacceptable.
That stood in direct contrast to what Mr. Trump said at the White House on Monday.
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“Yeah he will accept it,” Mr. Trump said of the Russian president. “I have asked him that question. Look – if we do this deal, he’s not looking for more war.”
Also Monday, Mr. Macron joined Mr. Trump on a video call with the leaders of the Group of Seven global economies to discuss the endgame in Ukraine.
Setback at the U.N.
And Mr. Trump’s diplomacy took a hit on another front at the United Nations, when the U.S. joined Russia in voting against a Europe-backed Ukrainian resolution that condemned what it said was Moscow’s aggression in the war and demanded an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed in the General Assembly by a huge margin.
In an odd twist, the U.S. delegation then abstained on its own competing resolution after a successful French-led amendment that again laid the blame for the war on the Kremlin.
Ninety-three nations supported the tougher language in the U.N. General Assembly vote, while the U.S. was joined by Russia, North Korea, Iran and about a dozen other countries in opposing the nonbinding resolution.
Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump put on a show of comradeship in their appearances Monday, but European leaders and other U.S. allies have been increasingly frank in their criticism of Mr. Trump’s approach, and U.S. suggestions that Ukraine must cede some territory and give up any hope of joining NATO as part of any “realistic” peace deal.
Germany’s Friedrich Merz, set to be his country’s next chancellor after his conservative coalition won Sunday’s general election, signaled Berlin’s backing for Kyiv would only increase under his proposed new government.
“More than ever, we must put Ukraine in a position of strength,” Mr. Merz wrote on X Monday. “For a fair peace, the country that is under attack must be part of peace negotiations.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who is meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week in Washington for talks, told a gathering of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels Monday, “You can discuss whatever you want with Putin. But if it comes to Europe or Ukraine, then Ukraine and Europe also have to agree to this deal.”
Relationships
Peter Doran, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said this week will be key to determining if peace in Ukraine can be achieved and, if so, what a final deal would look like. He said Mr. Macron and Mr. Starmer, who lead Europe’s two nuclear powers, are arriving in Washington to try to convince Mr. Trump not to make a unilateral deal with Mr. Putin, to include Europe in peace talks and to argue that caving in to the Russian president’s demands could signal weakness down the road with an even more powerful adversary — China.
“Trump has the best relationship with Macron, more than any other European leader,” Mr. Doran said. “They established a close relationship that has endured. If anyone has the ability to speak to Trump as a peer and a friend, it is Macron.”
Mr. Macon did just that, warning Mr. Trump that capitulating to Moscow could have far-reaching consequences.
Still, Mr. Trump tried to assert Monday that if Europe is going to have any role in the peace talks, it’s going to be on his terms. He said Europe must bear the brunt of any security assistance in a potential ceasefire.
“Europe is going to make sure that nothing happens. I don’t think that is going to be much of a problem. Once we settle, there’s going to be no more war in Ukraine,” he said.
Mr. Macron said he was open to the idea. He said France and talked to other European countries, including Britain about acting as peacekeepers, with soldiers maintaining a presence in Europe as well as sharing some of the cost burdens.
“As Europeans, we have committed to being stakeholders in these security guarantees and we are also well aware that Europeans need to do more for security in Europe, for defense in Europe and to more fairly share the security burden that your country has been carrying for so many years,” he told Mr. Trump.
However, Mr. Macron also bristled at Mr. Trump’s criticism that Europe hasn’t offered enough aid to Ukraine. The U.S. president has hammered European leaders because, he said, they provided Ukraine with loans while his predecessor, President Biden, offered aid with no strings attached.
“To be frank, we paid 60%. We paid 60% of the total defaults. And it was like the U.S. loans guarantee grants and we provided real money,” Mr. Macron said in one exchange in the Oval Office.
“If you believe that. It’s OK with me,” Mr. Trump fired back.
All told, the U.S. has provided roughly $180 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to the government’s watchdog tasked with monitoring the money flowing into the war-torn country. Ukraine has lost about a fifth of its territory and lost an estimated 43.000 soldiers and civilians since the fighting began in February 2022.
Mr. Trump has sought payback for that money by including U.S. access to Ukraine’s mining sector as part of any peace deal. Many of the minerals found in large quantities in Ukraine have applications in the American aerospace, medical and tech industries.
Mr. Zelenskyy has rejected the original mineral deal presented by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on a trip to Kyiv, saying it lacked security guarantees for Ukraine. He wrote Sunday on X that a deal was “making great progress,” but his country needs “a good economic deal that will be part of a true security guarantee system for Ukraine.”
Complicating the deal is a simmering feud between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelenskyy, with the U.S. president calling his counterpart a “dictator” and accusing Kyiv of starting the war with Russia. Mr. Zelenskyy has fired back accusing Mr. Trump of living in a “bubble” of Russian disinformation.
When asked Monday if he thought Mr. Putin was also a dictator, Mr. Trump responded, “I don’t use those words lightly.”
• David R. Sands contributed to this report, which was based in part on wire service dispatches.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.