It was hard to tell who was moderating the European leaders’ conference at the White House on Monday, Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin. At one point, Trump even interrupted a conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to call Putin in Russia.
While the Europeans envisioned a ceasefire as the next step in the peace process, Trump stuck to his Putinesque view that no ceasefire is needed. Instead, he kept speaking of a trilateral summit with himself, Putin, and Zelenskyy.
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However, trilateral became bilateral — “sort of” — after a Trump call to Putin. The bilateral would involve not Trump, but Zelensky, in a one-on-one with Putin.
“I sort of set it up with Putin and Zelensky, and you know, they’re the ones that have to call the shots, we’re, we’re 7,000 miles away,” Trump explained.
As I noted in a previous post, Trump’s biggest goal after his embarrassment in Alaska is to exit stage MAGA right, which is what a bilat with P and Z would symbolize.
A meeting between Putin and Zaeenskyy would also represent a serious security risk in my opinion. It would have to take place in a highly secure environment in a location friendly toward Zelenskyy. Remember, at the beginning of the war, Putin’s aim was to incacerate Zelenskyy for life or to simply execute him.
Putin has a long history of eliminating political foes , so extreme caution is in order.
That being said, I have my doubts that any such meeting will ever take place.
Why should it? Putin now has the upper hand with Trump arguing that no ceasefire is needed and at the same time being unwilling to tighten the screws on Putin through sanctions and tariffs.
It looks like Z and his “coalition of the willing” among European leaders are going to be left figuring this one out.