Breakthrough or bluff? What came out of Zelenskyy and Trump's White House meeting

When Volodymyr Zelenskyy stepped out of the car onto the White House porch, where Donald Trump was waiting for him, both the Ukrainian president himself and everyone following yesterday's meetings online must have felt a sense of déjà vu. The same scene could be seen almost six months ago, on February 28, and, as is well known, that episode ended very badly. It took Kyiv several months to rebuild relations with Washington to their previous level.

The risk of that scenario repeating was there again this time — but it didn’t happen. Moreover, as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at the end of the visit, his expectations were not only met but exceeded, as the talks went better than expected.

RBC-Ukraine sums up the key takeaways from yesterday's White House meeting.

Zelenskyy learned a lesson from the last time

Unlike in February, this time, the Ukrainian president came well prepared to deal with such a peculiar interlocutor. Starting with his suit, which made a good impression on Trump from the very first seconds, and even down to a letter from Olena Zelenska addressed to Melania Trump. It wasn't just a polite response to the note the US First Lady had previously sent Vladimir Putin — it was also a calculated move, knowing Donald Trump's well-documented fondness for handwritten letters.

Zelenskyy's communication style had also noticeably shifted — he repeatedly emphasized his gratitude to America and personally to Trump for his efforts. And he avoided publicly challenging Trump on issues where the US and Ukrainian positions still diverge.

As it turned out, these simple tactics worked more than effectively with Trump — the public portion of the talks unfolded in an overtly positive atmosphere.

European leaders, it seems, have also long since figured out how to handle the White House host. And even when they disagreed with Trump, they tended to do it in a veiled way, so as not to provoke his irritation.

Ukraine and Europe managed to shift the focus

The main concern ahead of the Washington talks was, of course, possible territorial concessions by Ukraine. According to numerous Western media reports, after his meeting with Putin in Alaska, Trump had generally warmed to the Russian leader's concept of Donbas in exchange for moving toward peace. And just before the White House talks, both Trump and his top aides were actively pushing this idea in the media and on social platforms.

But, as RBC-Ukraine sources confirmed, even behind closed doors, the territorial issue was not the centerpiece — it was postponed until a hypothetical Zelenskyy-Putin meeting. The main emphasis was instead on preparations for a potential trilateral summit and security guarantees for Ukraine.

European leaders, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump at the White House (Photo: Presidential Office press service)

Here, Ukraine and its European allies benefited from what Axios described as Trump's "three-step negotiation strategy." Its short-term goal is not even to secure a ceasefire or a stable peace, but simply to get Zelenskyy and Putin into the same room. That's why Trump first met Putin in Alaska, then Zelenskyy in Washington. And in Trump's mind, the next step should be a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting — with him in the room, of course.

This puts Ukraine in a stronger position, since Zelenskyy has spent months stressing that he is ready to talk with Putin anytime, anywhere, in any format. The Kremlin, by contrast, usually responds with little more than vague grumbling and throat-clearing.

Trump, meanwhile, acts like a heat-seeking missile, locking onto whoever he sees as the main obstacle to his goal at that moment. When, after February, he thought that the obstacle was Zelenskyy, Ukraine endured plenty of unpleasant moments. But once Trump came to believe over the summer that Putin was the one blocking peace, he turned his public fire on the Russian leader. By fully agreeing to the trilateral format, Zelenskyy again manages to deflect Trump's ire.

On the matter of guarantees, Trump looked far more receptive yesterday than just a few months ago. Especially since Ukraine isn't merely asking here — Kyiv is putting multibillion-dollar arms contracts on the table, to be paid for with European money. And selling American goods abroad is something Trump relishes.

As for the other component of guarantees — support for a possible European military contingent in Ukraine — the details remain scarce. Still, Trump hasn't dismissed the idea outright. And for European governments, as diplomatic sources told RBC-Ukraine, US backing is the essential precondition for launching any such mission.

Another positive takeaway: Zelenskyy apparently managed to shake Trump's confidence in Putin's narrative that Russia is winning decisively on the battlefield. After all, if in 1,000 days of war the aggressor managed to seize less than one percent of Ukrainian territory, then voluntarily giving them more land in Donbas than they've actually conquered is, to put it mildly, absurd.

The ball is back in Putin's court

One of the biggest problems after Alaska was that Putin, without making a single real concession, not only pushed the ceasefire and sanctions off the agenda but also effectively shifted the burden onto Ukraine — the next move was now expected from Zelenskyy. One of the key goals of yesterday's White House meeting was to pass the ball back to the aggressor.

It seems that goal was met — Trump didn't even wait until the end of his talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders before pausing to call Moscow. In their official statements, the Russians once again tried to wriggle out of a leaders' summit, pushing instead for delegation-level talks. As a symbolic gesture, they suggested raising the level of representation. But whether it's Lavrov in Istanbul instead of Medinsky makes no real difference at all.

Trump announced that he had already started organizing a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy (to be followed by a trilateral Trump-Zelenskyy-Putin summit). Reuters even claimed this sequence was proposed by the Russian leader himself. Still, the prospects for any such summits remain murky.

Moscow is fond of the classic "yes, but…" tactic: of course, we agree (to negotiations, a summit, ending the war, etc.), but only after certain conditions are met. And the process of creating those conditions can drag on endlessly, as shown by years of fruitless talks over the reintegration of occupied Donbas.

This makes the optimism voiced by participants in yesterday's meeting about a Zelenskyy-Trump-Putin summit in the coming weeks hard to understand.

Talks at the White House in extended format (Photo: Presidential Office press service)

Far more likely is another round of the same cycle — new delegation-level consultations, more calls, more leader-to-leader meetings. Because for now, there is no real convergence between Ukrainian and Russian positions. Yet Trump seems determined to secure a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting, even if it becomes an end in itself for the American president. Without any points of overlap, however, such talks will deliver no tangible results.

For now, the aggressor appears to be moving in the opposite direction — flatly rejecting the idea of deploying Western troops in Ukraine and launching yet another strike on Ukrainian rear positions.

Still, given Trump's sudden enthusiasm for the peace process — and his limited patience — this cycle may not last for months, as previous ones did, but could end up much shorter.