Many European leaders are set to join Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his visit to the White House on Monday to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump. View on euronews

The US president demanded a ceasefire before he met Putin. His change of mind flies in the face of what Europe and Ukraine want.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff says Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to allow the U.S. and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3 1/2-year war.

The traditionally Russian-speaking area is at the heart of what the Russian president calls the “root causes” of the war, and taking it over is near the top of his list of territorial and political demands.

But as the sketchy details have hardened into a growing prospect of forthcoming demands that will prove impossible for Ukraine to accept, confidence is giving way to unease, not least about the planned meeting in Washington on Monday between Mr Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European leaders have praised President Donald Trump for agreeing to allow vital U.S. backup for a force they are mustering to police any future peace in Ukraine — a move that vastly improves the chances of an operation that could prove essential for the country’s security.

Speaking after Friday’s summit, President Putin again implied that the war is all about Russia’s diminished status since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia would relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine and Kyiv would cede swathes of its eastern land which Moscow has been unable to capture, under peace proposals discussed by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at their Alaska summit, sources briefed on Moscow’s thinking said.