On Ukraine and Russia, lots of talk but little has changed

President Donald Trump, left, with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the two leaders’ summit meeting in Anchorage, Alaska on Aug. 15, 2025. European democracy and rule of law are at risk, a top German general says, so Europe must give Ukraine whatever it can to pressure Moscow, even if Trump does not. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By STEVEN ERLANGER

After a contentious White House meeting Friday between President Donald Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, European leaders restated their support Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine at current battle lines.

Russia also stalled plans for meetings with U.S. officials, undercutting any hopes for progress toward a pause in fighting. A White House official confirmed later that those plans were on hold.

The Europeans couched their backing for Ukraine’s position in terms that praised Trump, a tactic they frequently employ.

“We strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately, and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations,” the statement said. It was signed by 11 European leaders, including from Britain, Finland, France, Germany and the European Union, as well as by Zelenskyy.

Russia’s position has not changed. President Vladimir Putin of Russia demands that before any ceasefire, Ukraine surrender the parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that Russian troops do not already occupy. That represents almost 2% of Ukraine’s territory, twice the amount Russia has been able to gain for itself in the last two years of war.

Zelenskyy has refused to surrender that territory, a position he repeated in the Friday meeting with Trump. A day earlier, Putin called Trump to repeat his own position and warn him against giving Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, said a senior European official who asked for anonymity given the sensitivity of the topic.

Trump, apparently eager to build on his success in obtaining a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, pressed Zelenskyy to hand over the territory as Putin demanded to end the bloodshed. In the end, he accepted Zelenskyy’s refusal to do so, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the phone call Zelenskyy placed to European leaders just after he left the White House.

Zelenskyy told the Europeans that Trump at first demanded territorial concessions, as he had done before the Alaska summit in August with Putin, but eventually stopped insisting on them. He also warned that Russia was a larger country and might defeat Ukraine if there was no settlement. Zelenskyy insisted Ukraine was holding its own. Trump offered no Tomahawks.

Friday’s conversation was bad for Ukraine’s position but not nearly as bad as the Alaska meeting, the official said. And in the end, the official pointed out, Trump did not insist on Ukrainian concessions, so little seemed to have changed.

In fact, Trump described the meeting as cordial and denied that he had demanded territorial concessions from Ukraine. “Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” Trump said on social media. “They should stop where they are.”

Trump underscored that position Sunday. “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that.’”

Zelenskyy chose to describe the Trump meeting publicly as positive. “After many rounds of discussion over more than two hours with him and his team, his message, in my view, is positive: that we stand where we stand on the front line,” he said Sunday.

An EU diplomat briefed on a meeting with a Ukrainian official said that while there was no progress made in the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting, there was no backsliding either.

In the end, it changed little and “triggered a profound sense of déjà vu,” said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London. The only result was the suggestion of another summit between Trump and Putin at some point in Budapest, Hungary, which would be prepared by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

But on Tuesday, Moscow put off the Rubio-Lavrov meeting, saying that even their preparatory discussion must be further prepared. “We need preparation, serious preparation,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson. “This may take time. That’s why, in fact, no exact dates were initially set” for any meeting.

Later Tuesday, a White House official said there were no plans for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the immediate future.”

One key difference between Trump and Putin remained, Freedman noted, with Trump demanding a ceasefire before any political settlement and Putin demanding a settlement first.

With the front lines disputed, even negotiating a ceasefire would be complicated, Freedman said.

Though he has threatened to increase pressure on Putin to agree to a ceasefire, Trump has not done so. Ukrainian and other European officials, however, believe that only U.S. pressure will convince Putin that continuing the war is against his interests.

“We must ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defense industry, until Putin is ready to make peace,” the Europeans said in Tuesday’s statement, while promising to continue supporting Ukraine.