MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Today at the White House, an extraordinary gathering - on very short notice - of world leaders attempting to end the war that Russia started in Ukraine. President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders, and then he called Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, to begin arranging a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy - location and date to be determined. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to walk us through what all happened today. Hey, Danielle.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: What came out of this meeting today?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, at the start of it, you had all of these world leaders sitting around a long table in the East Room, and they each made public remarks. Now, after that came the private portion of the meeting. We haven't heard yet what they said during that. We can say that in those public remarks, we heard the European leaders politely but firmly pushing for Ukraine's interests. And one of those is security guarantees for Ukraine.
And Trump said today that Putin is open to a guarantee, and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff gave a bit more detail over the weekend on that. He said that Putin is open to a NATO-style security guarantee for Ukraine, which refers to the NATO principle that an attack on one NATO country is treated like an attack on all. But crucially, we don't know exactly what that would look like or what Russia would agree to.
KELLY: If, indeed, Russia would agree to any of that, since we haven't heard any of this directly from them yet. Let me turn you to questions about a ceasefire. President Trump has seemed to change his mind back and forth about whether one is needed. He said it was. Then he met with Putin on Friday. He came out of that and said, let's just work out a full peace deal, not an immediate ceasefire. Where did things get left on that one today?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, this is where it appears there's some difference in opinion. Ukraine wants a ceasefire, and you had Chancellor Merz of Germany and French President Macron really push for one as well. Merz said the credibility of today's work depends on a ceasefire.
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CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ: I can't imagine that the next meeting would took place without a ceasefire. So let's work on that, and let's try to put pressure on Russia.
KURTZLEBEN: But like you said, Trump now says a ceasefire just is not necessary. He's pushing for a full peace deal, which is what Putin wants. And the difference there is this - it's that a ceasefire would stop the fighting before negotiations, which is what Ukraine wants. But that full peace deal right now - if they tried that, that would mean fighting would continue, which means Ukraine would endure more and more attacks. Maybe Russia drags out the war, so then Russia would potentially have more leverage.
KELLY: Danielle, what about the issue of land swaps? I'm using air quotes around land swaps. That's what Trump has been calling them.
KURTZLEBEN: Well, Trump was the only leader to really talk about this ahead of the meeting. He said that Ukraine and Russia need to talk about those swaps based on the, quote, "current line of contact." But in the public remarks of other leaders, it didn't come up. And that's a really contentious issue in these talks, is the idea of land swaps. Russia already annexed Crimea in 2014 and now wants more of eastern Ukraine. Zelenskyy, of course, opposes this. So that question of land, it's one of the biggest questions we have going forward.
KELLY: May I ask you just about the optics, the mood today at the White House? We saw Zelenskyy in the Oval with Trump. From outside, it looked quite cordial.
KURTZLEBEN: That's right. And it was a big contrast with that infamous meeting in February where Trump and his top officials got angry with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and Zelenskyy pushed back. Today, Zelenskyy seemed to make a point of being gracious and thankful. He was dressed more formally than last time, which Trump also said he appreciated.
KELLY: That's NPR's White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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