Description: US President Donald Trump hosted European leaders and Ukrainian President Zelensky in a high-level meeting in the Oval Office where the future prospects of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine were discussed. The meeting raised many important and complex issues standing in the way of a potential peace agreement such as the security guarantees ensuring Ukraine’s defense and deterrent capabilities, Europe’s role in providing those security guarantees and potential concessions which would be made by Ukraine, such as territorial exchanges with Russia. Zelensky and the leaders from Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Finland, NATO and the European Commission held a closed doors meeting where a potential trilateral meeting between Trump, Zelensky and Putin has been reportedly agreed following the Russian President’s statements that Russia would agree towards an Article 5 – like security guarantees for Ukraine, after his meeting in Alaska with President Trump. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron reinstated that for any potential peace agreement to be achievable a ceasefire must ensue which would secure the basis for the initiation of diplomatic reengagement between Russia and Ukraine. Russia is yet to officially and constructively respond to the conclusions of the meeting, with Putin’s aide, Yuri Ushakov, stating that Russia would be willing to elevate the level of bilateral negotiations without specifying whether President Putin has agreed to a potential trilateral summit with Trump and Zelensky.
Impact: The high – level leaders’ meeting delivered the diplomatic groundwork for the formulation of a potential long – term peace initiative. Ukrainian President Zelensky has seemingly modified his position regarding the concessions Ukraine would have to make in terms of territorial exchanges as his statements resonated with the realities of the situation on the ground, despite Ukraine’s constitutional prohibitions. Two major sticking points remained unresolved after the meeting, the question of territorial exchanges and in what manner those exchanges would be arranged, since Russia has speculated with the idea of receiving the Donbas region in exchange for withdrawing its troops from the other two major regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The second conflicting point is the security architecture and guarantees Ukraine must receive as a deterrent from aggression in the future from its western partners, imperatively from Europe. Russia’s response would determine whether the western diplomatic push would substantiate in the near future or major differences would once again prevail and the war would continue. The number of unresolved and unspecified disputable points remains high, however, the meeting between the leaders of Europe, the US and Ukraine signals considerable progress towards potentially resolving the war.