Zelenskyy, Europeans to speak with Trump on security gurantees next week

Daryna Krasnolutska and Olesia Safronova, Bloomberg News on Aug 29, 2025

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and the European leaders will “connect” next week with Donald Trump to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv on Friday, Zelenskyy said the call will take place during one of the meetings the Ukrainian president is going to have with European leaders. The talks will be his latest push to win legally binding commitments from western allies as part of peace talks to end Russia’s full-scale invasion, which is well into its fourth year.

“We need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for security guarantees,” Zelenskyy said. “There are questions like ‘boots on the ground’ which can only be discussed at the leaders’ level,” he said without elaborating. Zelenskyy also didn’t give any further details about his schedule or the potential date for the call with Trump.

Ukraine and its allies have intensified work on security guarantees after Zelenskyy, European leaders, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the U.S. president met in Washington on Aug. 18. As Trump pushes for a quick agreement between Kyiv and Moscow on ending the war, Ukraine’s allies are focusing on pinning down what security guarantees they can provide to ensure that any agreement reached with Vladimir Putin can hold.

Zelenskyy said he saw security guarantees as consisting of three parts. The first would include providing financing and weapons for the Ukrainian army, which Kyiv wants to keep at its current size to defend against Russia. The second is about the kind of “NATO-like” form of support that allies would provide if Ukraine were attacked again, he said.

“We need to understand what the partners are ready for,” Zelenskyy said. “This part I want to discuss with partners in Europe, the leaders need to be involved in order to reach agreements.”

The third is about sanctions against Russia and the use of the frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv’s European allies have been discussing various forms of involvement, including potentially sending soldiers to Ukraine after a halt in hostilities. Trump has ruled out deploying U.S. troops, but said his country may provide air support.

“We have no specifics, we have no confirmation” of the contingent, Zelenskyy said. “Theoretically, we understand there are several countries that are ready for such steps.”

Russia has said it won’t agree to western soldiers being stationed in Ukraine as part of any future peace arrangement.

As negotiations grind on, Ukraine sent a delegation including Zelenskyy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak to the U.S. Friday for talks with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. The aim is to follow up on the plan for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, according to Zelenskyy. The White House had previously said it believed Putin agreed to it and that planning was “underway.”

“What is needed is America’s real desire” to put pressure on Putin so he sits at the table, Zelenskyy said. The bilateral meeting was supposed to be followed by a trilateral one with Trump.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly said he is ready to meet Putin though the Kremlin has never confirmed its commitment and no summit has yet been scheduled. The meeting is unlikely to materialize, according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Russia unleashed a new wave of drone and missile strikes on Kyiv on Thursday, in defiance of U.S. calls for an end to the fighting. It also amassed 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s eastern town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region as the Kremlin pushes on with its offensive, Zelenskyy said.

“Russia is to blame for the war and Russia must end it,” he said. “Everyone understands that Russia won’t be able to occupy the whole of Ukraine. We cannot liberate all our territory using weapons. Diplomacy is the fastest way to end” the war.