Trump hardens position on NATO, Crimea ahead of Zelensky meeting

London: US President Donald Trump has ruled out letting Ukraine join the NATO security alliance or reclaiming territory it lost to Russia more than a decade ago, hardening his position on peace terms ahead of a pivotal meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House.

Trump appears willing to offer security guarantees to Ukraine to enforce any settlement, in a move welcomed by European leaders also attending the talks in the US capital, but his stance on NATO accepts a core demand from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky will be joined by at least seven other European leaders in the hope of persuading Trump to wield sanctions and other penalties against Russia to enforce a peace deal on better terms for Ukraine.

Putin has rejected a ceasefire and wants a peace agreement that cements Moscow’s control of large stretches of eastern and southern Ukraine. Zelensky has declared that his country’s constitution does not allow him to give up territory, but he also signalled that the current front line should be the starting point for a negotiation.

Trump set the terms for the meeting by posting on his Truth Social platform that there was “no getting back” Crimea and no path for Ukraine to join NATO. Both these points are among Putin’s core demands.

“President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote late on Sunday (Monday AEST).

Shortly after, Zelensky posted on X to say he had arrived in Washington and expressed gratitude to Trump for the invitation – adding that it was Putin who must end the war.

“We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably. And peace must be lasting,” he said. He added that Ukraine had been forced to give up Crimea and part of the Donbas region in 2014, which meant Putin used it as a “springboard” for a later attack.

Zelensky’s message kept up the warnings from European leaders that any concessions made to Putin would only encourage the Russian leader to seek more territory in a later conflict.

“Russia must end this war, which it itself started,” Zelensky wrote. “And I hope that our joint strength with America, with our European friends, will force Russia into a real peace.”

Trump and Zelensky clashed in the White House in February, when the American president complained that the Ukrainian leader would not accept a peace deal with Putin, and this raised fears in Europe of another confrontation on Monday.

With Trump signalling that Ukraine should give up territory, European leaders increased their support for Zelensky over the weekend, with French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte all deciding to join him in Washington.

The group includes leaders with good personal relationships with Trump – especially Meloni, Rutte, Starmer and Stubb – and who could help persuade him to accept the European arguments against Putin.

Starmer and Macron convened another meeting of their “Coalition of the Willing” over the weekend to canvass ways for member nations to secure Ukrainian borders in any peace deal, with the UK offering “boots on the ground” and aircraft patrols.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined the online meeting overnight, given his stated position that he would consider options about Australian support, but he did not outline any specific pledges.

“If there is a peace and if there is a global response to that in the form of peacekeeping, then we would consider any proposal at the time,” Albanese said on Sky News on Monday.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump complained that he was not being given enough credit for progress on a peace deal after his summit with Putin in Alaska last week.

“If I got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal, the Fake News, and their PARTNER, the Radical Left Democrats, would say I made a terrible mistake and a very bad deal,” he posted on Truth Social.

“That’s why they are the FAKE NEWS! Also, they should talk about the 6 WARS, etc., I JUST STOPPED!!!”

White House officials argue that Trump has negotiated peace deals between Thailand and Cambodia, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Serbia and Kosovo, Egypt and Ethiopia, Israel and Iran, and Azerbaijan and Armenia. Trump did not name the six wars he was referring to.

In a signal of his attitude to the Ukraine peace talks, he also forwarded a post on Truth Social from a private citizen that said: “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory to Russia otherwise the longer the war goes on they will keep losing even more land!!”

Zelensky joined von der Leyen in Brussels on Sunday to demonstrate unity before flying to the US capital.

“Putin does not want to stop the killings. But he must do it,” Zelensky said.

“We need real negotiations, which means they can start where the front line is now. The contact line is the best line for talking.”

One day before Trump ruled out allowing Ukraine into NATO, the European leaders warned against taking that position: “Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to [the European Union] and NATO,” they said in a statement issued in Brussels on Saturday.

Russia has seized most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine and large parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, as well as the Crimea. Putin is seeking a peace agreement that secures Russian control of this territory and places curbs on the Ukrainian military as well as blocking Ukraine’s NATO bid.

In an important message about the US approach to a peace deal, Trump’s top officials told American TV networks that the US would offer security guarantees to Ukraine so it was protected in any agreement with Russia.

Macron warned on the weekend that Putin had broken peace agreements in the past, highlighting European concerns that a security guarantee from Trump would be too weak to prevent Russia from sparking future conflicts with its neighbours.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff framed this as a concession extracted from Putin and said the Russian leader accepted that the US would offer security guarantees to Ukraine that were similar to those offered to NATO members under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

“We were able to win the following concession, that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection,” he told CNN on Sunday in the US.

On this point, the key concession from the Trump administration is that it accepts Putin’s demand that Ukraine must not be allowed to join NATO.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke of security guarantees in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, but was challenged on this when the interviewer replayed remarks he’d made as a senator three years ago.

“[Putin’s] never kept a deal they’ve ever signed, and … he lies all the time,” Rubio said in March 2022, soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“And I don’t know why, but he plays us like a violin in the West, because the West wants to believe that you can cut a deal with everybody. You can’t cut a deal with guys like this. He’s a professional, experienced liar.”

Asked about that remark, Rubio said it explained why the US was now considering security guarantees.

“That’s why the deal has to have enforceable mechanisms in it. That’s why the deal has to have things like security guarantees,” he said.

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