What to know about Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House on Monday to discuss how to end Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine.

Months of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting haven’t made headway, but the stakes have risen since Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. After that summit, Trump abandoned the requirement of reaching a ceasefire in order to hold further talks and aligned with Putin’s position that negotiations should focus on a long-term settlement instead.

The presence of several European leaders at the talks in Washington shows how central the conflict — and any settlement — is to wider security questions on the continent.

They are looking to safeguard Ukraine and Europe more broadly from any further aggression from Moscow — but also are providing a show of support for Zelenskyy after his last visit to the White House led to an angry confrontation . The American and Ukrainian leaders are scheduled to first meet privately, without the Europeans.

On “Trump’s ultimate policy towards the Russia-Ukraine war hangs not just the future of Ukraine security, but Europe’s as well,’’ said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The stakes could not be higher for the continent.’’

Here’s what to know about the Washington meeting.

The talks could be a pivotal moment in the war

After meeting Putin in Alaska, Trump is making a big push for a breakthrough.

A lot of issues need to be resolved, however, and the two sides have previously established red lines that are incompatible , including questions of whether Ukraine will cede any land to Russia, the future of Ukraine’s army and whether the country will have any guarantee against further Russian aggression.

In a post on social media Sunday night, Trump appeared to shift the burden for ending the war to Zelenskyy, whose country was invaded in February 2022.

“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” he wrote.

A comprehensive peace deal could still be a long way off.

Putin wants the Donbas

As a condition for peace, the Russian leader wants Kyiv to give up the Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the most intense fighting but that Russian forces have failed to capture completely.

In his Sunday night post, Trump wrote that Zelenskyy should also accept Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region .

As part of a deal, Putin has said the United States and its European allies can provide Ukraine with a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense pledge, according to a senior U.S. official.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff called that a “game-changing” step though he offered few details on how it would work.

Ukraine has long pressed for some kind of guarantee that would prevent Russia from invading again.

Ukraine won’t surrender land to Russia

Zelenskyy has rejected Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the Donbas region, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, since the Ukrainian Constitution forbids giving up territory or trading land. That also means he can’t cede Crimea either.

Instead, freezing the front line — which snakes roughly 1,000 kilometers from northeastern to southeastern Ukraine — seems to be the most the Ukrainian people might accept.

Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Europe’s security is also at stake in the talks

European leaders see Ukraine’s fight as a bulwark against any Kremlin ambitions to threaten other countries in eastern Europe and beyond.

French President Emmanuel Macron described Ukraine as an “outpost of our collective defense if Russia wanted to advance again.”

“If we are weak with Russia today, we’ll be preparing the conflicts of tomorrow and they will impact the Ukrainians and — make no mistake — they can impact us, too,” Macron said Sunday.

The European political heavyweights expected in Washington are Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Civilians are killed as the fighting continues

Ukraine has in recent months been losing more territory against Russia’s bigger army, and Moscow’s forces breached Ukrainian lines in a series of minor infiltrations in the Donetsk region ahead of the Alaska summit. But there is no sign of a looming, major Russian breakthrough on the front line.

Both sides have also kept up their daily long-range strikes behind the front line.

A Russian drone strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killed six people late Sunday, including an 18-month-old and a 16-year-old, according to regional head Oleh Syniehubov. The attack on the northeastern city injured 20 others, including six children, he said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday reported intercepting 23 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight.

Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed.

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普将于周一在白宫接待乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基和欧洲领导人，讨论如何结束俄罗斯在乌克兰长达三年的战争。

美国主导的旨在制止冲突数月的外交努力并未取得进展，但自特朗普上周五与俄罗斯总统普京会晤以来，局势变得更加复杂。峰会后，特朗普放弃了以达成停火协议为前提条件举行进一步谈判的立场，转而支持普京关于谈判应着重于达成长期解决方案的观点。

多位欧洲领导人出席在华盛顿举行的会谈，表明这场冲突及其任何解决方案对于欧洲大陆更广泛的安全问题都至关重要。

他们此举旨在保护乌克兰乃至整个欧洲免受莫斯科的进一步侵略，同时也意在向泽连斯基示好，此前泽连斯基上次访问白宫引发了激烈的冲突。美乌领导人计划首先举行闭门会晤，欧洲领导人将不参与。

“特朗普对俄乌战争的最终政策不仅关乎乌克兰的未来安全，也关乎欧洲的未来安全，”国际战略研究所俄罗斯与欧亚问题高级研究员奈杰尔·古尔德-戴维斯表示，“对整个欧洲大陆而言，利害关系再高不过了。”

以下是关于华盛顿会议需要了解的信息。

会谈可能成为战争的关键时刻。

在阿拉斯加与普京会晤后，特朗普正大力推动取得突破性进展。

然而，仍有许多问题需要解决，双方此前划定的红线也存在冲突，包括乌克兰是否会向俄罗斯割让任何土地、乌克兰军队的未来以及该国是否会受到俄罗斯进一步侵略的保障等问题。

周日晚间，特朗普在社交媒体上发帖，似乎将结束战争的责任推给了泽连斯基，而泽连斯基的国家在2022年2月遭到入侵。

他写道：“如果乌克兰总统泽连斯基愿意，他几乎可以立即结束与俄罗斯的战争，或者他也可以继续战斗。”

达成全面的和平协议可能还有很长的路要走。

普京想要顿巴斯

作为和平的条件，俄罗斯领导人希望基辅放弃顿巴斯地区。顿巴斯是乌克兰东部的一个工业区，曾发生过一些最激烈的战斗，但俄罗斯军队未能完全占领该地区。

特朗普在周日晚间的帖子中写道，泽连斯基也应该接受俄罗斯在 2014 年非法吞并乌克兰克里米亚地区的事实。

据一位美国高级官员透露，作为协议的一部分，普京表示，美国及其欧洲盟友可以向乌克兰提供类似于北约集体防御承诺的安全保障。

特朗普特使史蒂夫·威特科夫称此举是“改变游戏规则”的一步，但他并未详细说明具体操作方式。

乌克兰长期以来一直要求获得某种保证，以防止俄罗斯再次入侵。

乌克兰不会向俄罗斯割让土地。

泽连斯基拒绝了普京要求乌克兰割让顿巴斯地区的请求，该地区由顿涅茨克和卢甘斯克两州组成，因为乌克兰宪法禁止割让领土或进行土地交易。这也意味着他无法割让克里米亚。

相反，冻结从乌克兰东北部蜿蜒至东南部约 1000 公里的前线似乎是乌克兰人民所能接受的最大限度。

俄罗斯目前控制着乌克兰约20%的领土。

欧洲的安全也在谈判中受到威胁。

欧洲领导人将乌克兰的斗争视为抵御克里姆林宫任何威胁东欧及其他地区国家的野心的堡垒。

法国总统马克龙将乌克兰描述为“如果俄罗斯想要再次推进，我们集体防御的前哨”。

“如果我们今天对俄罗斯态度软弱，我们将为明天的冲突埋下隐患，这些冲突不仅会影响乌克兰人民，而且——毫无疑问——也会影响到我们自己，”马克龙周日表示。

预计将出席华盛顿会议的欧洲政坛重量级人物包括：马克龙、英国首相基尔·施塔默、德国总理弗里德里希·默茨、意大利总理乔治娅·梅洛尼、芬兰总统亚历山大·斯图布、欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩和北约秘书长马克·吕特。

战斗持续进行，平民伤亡不断。

近几个月来，乌克兰在与俄罗斯兵力更强的军队的对抗中节节败退，节节败退。在阿拉斯加峰会召开前夕，莫斯科军队在顿涅茨克地区发动了一系列小规模渗透行动，突破了乌克兰防线。但目前尚无迹象表明俄罗斯会在前线取得重大突破。

双方也一直保持着每天在前线后方进行的远程打击。

据乌克兰东北部地区领导人奥列格·西涅胡博夫称，周日晚间，俄罗斯无人机袭击乌克兰第二大城市哈尔科夫，造成6人死亡，其中包括一名18个月大的婴儿和一名16岁的青少年。他还表示，此次袭击还造成20人受伤，其中包括6名儿童。

俄罗斯国防部周一报告称，一夜之间在俄罗斯领土和被吞并的克里米亚半岛上空拦截了 23 架乌克兰无人机。

美联社驻伦敦记者丹妮卡·基尔卡对此文亦有贡献。