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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Monday that he had a “good” telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on the matter of security assurances for Ukraine, as the conflict with Russia enters its fourth year.

Speaking on the White House grounds alongside Trump and European leaders, Zelenskyy said security assurances were central to Ukraine’s survival and its future independence. “The first one is security guarantees. And we are very happy with President [Trump], that all the leaders are here, and security in Ukraine depends on the United States and European countries,” Zelenskyy said. He added that Washington’s readiness to send strong signals of support was “very important,” but he did not specify the form such guarantees should take.

Trump concurred with the emphasis on security but added that Europe should bear the brunt of the burden. “We’re going to help them, and we’re going to make it very secure. We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact. That means the war zone, the war line center,” Trump said.

He has previously spoken positively about the idea of returning Crimea to Russian control, a notion that Ukrainian officials have firmly rejected. Russia’s annexation of the peninsula was the trigger for the invasion in February 2022.

The White House summit highlighted acute divisions between Western leaders over how best to balance support for Ukraine with the search for a negotiated end to the war. Trump has shown a willingness to consider Ukrainian territorial concessions that Zelenskyy has repeatedly said would be unacceptable.

Sanctions and Ceasefire Pressure Amidst the NATO Query

While the leaders in Washington were talking about guarantees, members of the U.S. Congress were increasing their calls for new economic measures against Russia and the countries that do its business.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the Trump administration should be more aggressive in attacking Moscow’s financial sector, specifically by imposing penalties on countries that continue to buy Russian oil. Graham is co-sponsoring legislation that would permit Trump to impose tariffs of up to 500 percent on any country that maintains economic ties with Russia.

“My advice to President Trump and [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] is, you’ve got to convince Putin that if this war doesn’t end justly and honorably with Ukraine making concessions also, we’re going to destroy the Russian economy,” Graham said on Fox News.

He added that Xi Jinping, China’s president, is especially important in this regard. “The second most important person on the planet to end this war is President Xi in China,” Graham said, arguing that Washington should apply diplomatic and economic pressure to Beijing to get it to drop its support for Russia. “We have to get the Chinese involved in this and get them to tell Putin, ‘Look, we can’t do this anymore.’ I have no doubt the Chinese have leverage.”

Trump has already used tariffs as a threat against India in atossure New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil. Graham suggested similar threats against China could be used to shift the trajectory of the conflict.

The European Union is working on its 19th round of sanctions against Moscow. The new measures, which are expected later this month, are intended to further reduce Russia’s energy revenues, limit its access to banking, and target its military-industrial base. The latest tranche would also close a number of loopholes that have allowed for evasions of previous rounds of sanctions. After almost four years of joint Western action, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in modern history, more economically isolated than Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela.

Still, sanctions are not the only point of contention. European leaders also applied pressure to Trump over the need for a ceasefire before any meaningful negotiations. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a temporary cessation of hostilities was a necessary condition for the negotiations to have any credibility. “I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz said. Trump disagreed, pointing out that half of the six peace deals he has brokered in the past months, which he later claimed had been made in secret, were signed without a ceasefire. “You have a ceasefire, and they rebuild and rebuild and rebuild,” Trump said, while at the same time conceding that the main utility of a truce would be to stop civilian deaths.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who took office in March 2024, also took part in the White House talks. Stubb has been publicly skeptical of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability or willingness to respect any ceasefire. The Finnish president said it was in Finland’s unique historical interest to see the end of hostilities in Ukraine, pointing out his country has an 800-mile border with Russia. “If I look at the silver lining of where we stand right now, we found a solution in 1944, and I’m sure that we’ll be able to find a solution in 2025 to end Russia’s war of aggression,” Stubb said, who was described as one of Trump’s closest European interlocutors.

In addition to sanctions and ceasefires, Trump has been more than willing to lay out his conditions for peace. On Truth Social, a day before the summit, he published a lengthy post urging Ukraine to formally cede the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and to abandon its efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote. He blamed former President Barack Obama for “giving” Crimea to Russia without putting up a fight more than a decade ago and said, “NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE” must be a red line for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s request for long-term Western security guarantees was a world apart from Trump’s calls for compromises. Trump’s insistence on concessions was at odds with Zelenskyy’s repeated pledges that Ukraine’s sovereignty and internationally recognized borders were nonnegotiable. The dissonance between the two highlighted the deep differences in Washington and Europe on how to bring an end to the war. With more sanctions on the way, rising threats of tariffs, and continued fighting on the battlefield, the road to peace is once again caught between demands for concessions and calls for solidarity.