Ukraine tries to understand why Trump suddenly abandoned idea of ceasefire

KYIV, Ukraine – After President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended inconclusive peace talks in Alaska, Ukraine was left in a position it knows all too well. It was scrambling to piece together what the two leaders had actually discussed, deciphering what they may have agreed on and striving to avoid being sidelined in peace talks.

A call a few hours later from Trump filled in some of the gaps. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said the phone discussion, which included European leaders, had been “long and substantive” and covered “the main points” of Trump’s talks with Putin. Zelenskyy added that he would visit Trump in Washington on Monday “to discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”

But even as Zelenskyy’s statement suggested a potential path toward a peace deal after months of largely fruitless negotiations, a public statement by Trump later Saturday morning raised questions about whether such an opening would be too heavily tilted toward Russia for Ukraine to accept.

Trump called on social media for a direct peace agreement without securing a ceasefire first, claiming that Zelenskyy and European leaders had agreed on the point. His statement was a stark shift from the “principles” agreed upon earlier in the week by Trump, Zelenskyy and his European allies, which called for refusing to discuss peace terms until a ceasefire was in place.

Russia has long pushed for a direct peace deal that would address a broad range of issues and impose onerous demands on Ukraine, including territorial concessions. Avoiding a ceasefire would allow Russia to continue pressing its advantage on the battlefield in the meantime.

An official briefed on the call between Trump and Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian leader’s trip to Washington would aim to seek clarity from Trump. Kyiv does not understand why the American president suddenly dropped the demand that a ceasefire precede negotiations.

In a statement, Zelenskyy seemed to tread carefully, trying not to openly contradict Trump.

“We need to achieve a real peace that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions,” Zelenskyy said. But he added that “the killings must stop as soon as possible, and the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the air, as well as against our port infrastructure,” suggesting that he was still prioritizing a ceasefire.

In statements of their own, European leaders made no mention of having agreed to abandon their demand for a ceasefire. At the same time, the fact that the statements did not include a demand for a ceasefire, as in previous remarks, suggests at the very least an attempt not to antagonize Trump.

Trump’s move to aim for a direct peace deal could bring to failure a week of frantic diplomacy in which Kyiv, with European support, had lobbied the U.S. administration to insist that a ceasefire should come first and that Ukraine should not be undercut in the negotiations.

Trump’s social media post caused a feeling of whiplash among some Ukrainians, who quickly reversed their early assessments of the Alaska summit.

Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, had initially expressed some relief, saying that “the situation could have been worse” if Trump and Putin had struck a deal behind Ukraine’s back.

He said that a scenario in which “Trump and Putin started together to pressure Ukraine into surrender” could not have been ruled out given Trump’s history of deference to Putin.

But after Trump’s post on Truth Social, Merezhko changed his view. “In fact, Putin and Trump are starting to force us into surrender,” he said.

Trump also proposed security guarantees for Ukraine inspired by the collective defense agreement between NATO member countries, which states that any attack on a member is an attack against all, according to Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister.

Under such guarantees, Ukraine’s NATO allies would be “ready to take action” if Russia attacked again. But Merezhko and other Ukrainian allies said such a formulation was too vague.

“Which countries will agree to consider an attack against Ukraine as an attack against themselves?” Merezhko asked. “I’d like to believe that we will find such countries, but I’m not sure.”

Trump, in an interview with Fox News after the meeting with Putin, also addressed the idea of territorial swaps, saying they were among the points “that we largely have agreed on.” Trump had said several times over the past week that territorial concessions would be part of a peace agreement, drawing pushback from Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy, however, has not entirely ruled out possible land swaps, telling reporters this past week that this is “a very complex issue that cannot be separated from security guarantees for Ukraine.”

Merezhko, who like many Ukrainian officials was left on tenterhooks by the Alaska meeting, watched the post-meeting news conference live from Kyiv at around 2 a.m. local time.

As both Trump and Putin offered only vague statements, Merezhko said it had become clear that no concrete deal had been reached.

He noted that Putin had again said that any end to the fighting must address the “root causes” of the war, which is Kremlin parlance for a range of issues that include the existence of Ukraine as a fully independent and sovereign nation aligned with the West.

“I think it’s a failure because Putin was again talking about security concerns and used his usual rhetoric,” Merezhko said as the press conference came to an end. “I don’t see any changes.”

Vadym Prystaiko, a former foreign affairs minister, said in a phone interview that the summit’s brief duration – it lasted just a few hours and broke up ahead of schedule – indicated limited progress toward peace.

He recalled that during ceasefire negotiations in the first Ukraine-Russia war, which started in 2014, he spent 16 hours in a room with Putin and Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko.

The ceasefire that was eventually agreed upon did not last, and fighting soon resumed.

“They didn’t manage to sit enough hours to actually go through all the stuff that is needed to reach a deal,” Prystaiko said of Trump and Putin.

In Kyiv, some emerged Saturday morning from a sleepless night following the news with the sense that the war was likely to continue unabated. After the Alaska summit wrapped up, the Ukrainian air force said Russia had continued its assault on Ukraine, launching 85 drones and one ballistic missile overnight. These figures could not be independently verified.

Tetiana Chamlai, a 66-year-old retiree in Kyiv, said the situation with the war would change only if Ukraine was given more military support, to push Russian forces back enough to force Moscow to the negotiating table. “That’s the only way everything will stop,” she said. “I personally do not see any other way out.”

But Vice President JD Vance made clear this past week that the United States was “done” funding Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. The Trump administration, however, is fine with Ukraine buying American weapons from U.S. companies, and Zelenskyy announced this past week that Kyiv had secured $1.5 billion in European funding to purchase U.S. arms.

How long the Ukrainian army can hold against relentless Russian assaults remains uncertain. Moscow’s forces recently broke through a section of the Ukrainian defenses in the eastern Donbas region, and although their advance has been halted, the swift infiltration has underscored the strain on Ukraine’s stretched lines.

Balazs Jarabik, a former European Union diplomat in Kyiv who now works for R. Politik, a political analysis firm, said Russia’s upper hand on the battlefield had most likely played a role in Trump’s agreeing to aim for a peace deal rather than a ceasefire.

“Kyiv and Europe must adapt to a new reality shaped by Washington and Moscow,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.