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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be ready to join Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at a proposed summit in Hungary if invited.
The presidents of the United States and Russia announced Thursday that they plan to hold talks on the war in Ukraine in Budapest, possibly in the coming weeks.
In comments published on Monday, Zelensky told reporters: “If this is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it is called, shuttle diplomacy … then in one format or another, we will agree.”
Meanwhile, media reports suggested his White House meeting with Trump on Friday descended into a “shouting meeting” – with the US calling on Ukraine to accept Russia’s terms for ending the war.
Zelensky was guarded during his first press briefing after the talks, but his comments nonetheless showed that there are large areas of disagreement between the two sides.
He described the meeting as frank and said he told Trump his main goal was a just peace, not a quick peace.
He criticized Hungary as the venue for future Trump-Putin talks, saying the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could not do “anything positive for Ukrainians or even provide a balanced contribution.”
Asked by reporters on Friday if Zelensky would participate in the Budapest meeting, Trump said he wanted to “make it comfortable for everybody.”
“We will participate in threes, but it could be split,” he said, adding that the three leaders “must come together.”
Zelensky had hoped to secure US Tomahawk missiles to strike deep into Russia during the talks, but appeared to walk away empty-handed as Trump took a non-committal tone on the matter.
On Monday, media reports indicated that the atmosphere at the meeting between the leaders of the United States and Ukraine was much more heated than previously thought.
Financial Times reported Trump warned Zelensky that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine if he did not agree to his terms, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The US side is said to have repeated Russian talking points at the “volatile” meeting. He also reported that Trump had tossed aside the frontline maps in Ukraine and insisted that Zelensky hand over the entire Donbass region to Putin.
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Just last month, Trump appeared to take a a big change in his position for ending the war, saying that Kiev could “return all of Ukraine to its original form.”
He said his position changed “after getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia military and economic situation.”
Trump has previously warned that the process would likely involve Ukraine giving up part of the territory, an outcome Zelensky has consistently rejected.
The US president is pressuring NATO nations, as well as China and India, to stop buying Russian oil in an attempt to put additional economic pressure on Moscow to end the conflict.
He previously threatened Russia with tougher sanctions if Putin did not meet deadlines for progress in ending the war, although he did not follow through on those threats.
Trump’s public relationship with Zelensky has also improved significantly in recent months, most notably since an Oval Office meeting in February when he and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian president on live television.
During his re-election campaign, Trump claimed he would be able to end the war in Ukraine within days, but has since admitted that resolving the conflict is a bigger challenge than any he has been involved in since returning to office.
