NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump welcomed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House in a friendly atmosphere on Monday after a cavalcade of European leaders arrived to back him for talks that could be pivotal for ending the war with Russia.
As they sat down for their talks, Trump said: "If everything works out well today, we'll have a trilat (trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin) — and I think there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war when we do that."
Their meeting followed Trump's summit with Putin on Friday in Alaska.
"The whole world is tired of it (the war), " he said, adding Putin wants to end it and Zelensky wants to end it.
Trump said that he would support a security guarantee for Ukraine with some form of a US involvement, but insisted that a ceasefire was not necessary -- a backdown from his demand for an immediate end to the hostilities.
"We will give them very good protection and very good security, " he added.
The future of Trump's peace effort depends also on the fate of Ukrainian territory held by Russia and during the talks on Monday they would have to give shape to a proposal that could be given to Putin.
Trump did not get into it on Monday, although on Sunday he said on his social media platform Truth Social that Ukraine would have to give up Crimea that Russia captured in 2014 when Barack Obama was the US President.
Russia wants to hold on to the Donetsk region with a sizeable Russian ethnic minority, most of which it has captured.
"We're going to work with Ukraine, we're going to work with everybody, and we're going to make sure that if there's peace, that peace is going to stay long-term, " he said.