PinnedThe contours of security guarantees that would shape a postwar Ukraine dominated talks among world leaders on Tuesday, the day after meetings in Washington demonstrated solidarity with Kyiv but yielded few details on how to stop the conflict or prevent future attacks.Among the possibilities discussed was deploying European troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers, which the United States could potentially back with air support but not, President Trump insisted, American ground troops. Russia has flatly rejected the idea of an international force on its borders on multiple occasions.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had agreed to a sought-after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky — but Moscow has not confirmed, and the Kremlin downplayed the prospect of face-to-face peace talks.Mr. Trump had highlighted the potential bilateral meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky as an achievement of Monday’s day of diplomacy and a critical step in ending the war, writing that he had already begun making arrangements for their summit as well as a subsequent trilateral meeting involving Mr. Putin, Mr. Zelensky and himself.But Russian state news media barely mentioned the possible meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky in coverage of Monday’s talks. And Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, scoffed at the prospect on Tuesday, saying in a television interview that while Russia was not against such a meeting in principle, “any contacts involving top officials should be prepared very carefully.”On several crucial issues, a wide gulf remains between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Putin after three and a half years of war.Mr. Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, have suggested that Mr. Putin would agree to European troop deployments in Ukraine as part of a postwar security arrangement to dissuade future Russian attacks, so long as Ukraine does not join NATO and the ground forces aren’t organized by the Western military alliance. Through its foreign ministry, Russia on Monday again denounced the idea of international troops patrolling Ukraine.Russia has insisted on territorial concessions that Ukraine has refused. Ukraine has insisted on a cease-fire that Russia has refused, as recently as Friday when Mr. Putin met with Mr. Trump in Alaska.And while Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine would purchase $90 billion in American weapons through Europe as part of the security guarantees, he left the White House without a formal agreement toward peace.Here’s what else to know:Attacks: Overnight, Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine, causing injuries and damage to infrastructure and energy facilities, Ukrainian officials said, a day after at least 14 people were killed in Russian strikes.Cease-fire push: At the meeting on Monday, some European officials pressed Mr. Trump on the need to secure an urgent cease-fire, which they argued would help stop the growing civilian death toll in Ukraine and create stability for genuine peace negotiations. But aware that Mr. Trump dislikes the term “cease-fire,” they are calling it a “truce” instead.U.S. military aid: The $90 billion in American weapons that Mr. Zelensky said would be part of the security agreements could include sophisticated weapons that are in short supply in Ukraine: air-defense systems and war planes. How Ukraine would pay for them remained unclear.Aug. 19, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ETPresident Trump and Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, in Scotland, in July. Mr. Starmer has talked about assembling a force drawn from a “coalition of the willing” to maintain security in a postwar Ukraine.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesPresident Trump’s promise not to deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a security guarantee for Kyiv to end the Russian invasion calls into question just how much of a security guarantee postwar Ukraine would have under such plans.While the exact contours of Mr. Trump’s security plans for Ukraine remain vague, he told Fox News on Tuesday that his administration was open to providing air support and aiding European allies, who, he said, were “willing” to deploy troops to defend Ukraine.That Mr. Trump has ruled out deploying American troops is not surprising.But some experts on Russia and Ukraine said the stance could drive European leaders to deploy fewer numbers of fighters than they otherwise may have, adding that it also qualifies just how much deterrence a guarantee would offer Ukraine against the prospect of future Russian aggression.While some experts see discussions of security guarantees as a glimmer of progress in one of Europe’s bloodiest land wars, Mr. Trump’s reluctance comes at a particularly fraught time. Some European militaries are struggling with limited resources, and the political will to defend Ukraine is fragmenting across the continent.“Let’s put it this way: With American participation, deterring Russia will be easy,” said Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert at Chatham House, a London-based research organization. “Without it, it will be a great deal harder.”In the past, American support has been important to European troop commitments to Ukraine. In February, Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, who has talked about assembling a force drawn from a “coalition of the willing” to maintain security in a postwar Ukraine, offered troops to help guarantee the country’s security. But he said that any arrangement would require a U.S. “backstop.”Hilary Appel, an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe at Claremont McKenna College in California, said an American presence would make it “much easier” for European leaders to justify sending their troops but also encourage uncommitted countries to join the coalition.And when it comes to deterring future Russian incursions — which would be the point of a security guarantee — the number of troops and “troop density” both matter, said Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at the War Studies Department of King’s College London.”You have this coalition of the willing, but it’s not equivalent to NATO as a whole,” said Ms. Miron. “Without America, let’s be really realistic, NATO doesn’t pose much of a threat to Russia.”Still, experts said U.S. air support in the event of a cease-fire agreement in Ukraine would play a crucial supporting role in maintaining peace.While Mr. Trump has not specified how he would aid Ukraine by air, assistance could include providing logistical support and deliveries to European militaries, said Ms. Miron. Alternatively, she said, another means for air support would be for combat operations, including fighter jets targeting units on the ground. But, she added, such a situation appeared unlikely since that those plans would presumably be for after the war had ended.“The big problem for the Europeans is their resources are relatively limited,” said Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian military expert at CNA, a security research center. “So if you have the U.S. providing things like logistics and air surveillance and that kind of intelligence, that makes the whole operation more feasible and sustainable,” he said.Much of the security guarantee will equally center on the willingness of European countries to stand up to Russia, experts say.“The scope of what had been meant by security guarantees is so wide that they could be proper and could cause Russia to pause before moving further — or they could be completely meaningless,” Mr. Giles, of Chatham House, said.“But it takes substantial courage from European countries, who have not been willing to confront Russia on their own.”Aug. 19, 2025, 2:29 p.m. ETTierney L. Cross/The New York Times, Luis Tato/AFP — Getty Images, Pool Photo by Mohd Rasfan, Majid Saeedi/Getty ImagesPresident Trump often says that he has resolved multiple wars since taking office in January and that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. “I’m averaging about a war a month,” Mr. Trump said in July in Turnberry, Scotland.On Monday at the White House, during talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine aimed at moving toward a peace deal with Russia, he referred to “six wars that I’ve settled.” On Tuesday, in an interview on “Fox and Friends,” he said he had ended seven wars, though he did not specify which one he had added.“I really want to get to heaven,” Mr. Trump said in the interview, explaining his motivation for playing peacemaker, though he joked that he knew he was “on the bottom of the totem pole.”Every U.S. president has world conflicts land on his desk, and Mr. Trump has used the power of his office, including the threat of economic penalties, to intervene in several this year, leading to a stop in fighting. In some cases, warring parties have credited him with advancing peace or calming hostilities. In others, his role is disputed or less clear — or fighting has resumed.Asked for clarification, the White House provided a list of the six wars he says he has resolved. It did not respond to a subsequent question about the seventh.Armenia and AzerbaijanPresident Trump with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia at a signing ceremony at the White House.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesMr. Trump brought the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to the White House this month to sign a joint declaration aimed at bringing their long-running conflict closer to an end. It was not a peace deal, but it was the first commitment toward one since fighting broke out in the late 1980s when a weakening Soviet Union unleashed interethnic strife in the Caucasus.Both leaders praised Mr. Trump, who stepped into a conflict that had long been mediated by Russia, until President Vladimir V. Putin’s attention shifted after his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.As part of the agreement, Armenia said it would grant the United States rights to develop a major transit corridor through its territory, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. The project has been described an economic game changer for the region that would better connect Europe with Azerbaijan and Central Asia.But it is not clear when the route will open and on what terms. And major barriers to a lasting peace remain.Azerbaijan continues to demand that Armenia change its constitution to remove mentions of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan took over entirely in 2023. Azerbaijan also occupies small areas of Armenia, citing security concerns, and the countries have not agreed on a shared border. For now, the border between the two nations is closed, diplomatic ties remain broken.Democratic Republic of Congo and RwandaA member of the M23 armed group in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, in February.Credit...Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn June, the top diplomats from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo came to the Oval Office to sign a peace agreement aimed at ending a war that has raged for over three decades. Qatar also played a major role in the deal, which was intended to pave the way to a full peace agreement.Mr. Trump called the accord “a glorious triumph.”But talks on a comprehensive agreement have since faltered and deadly fighting has continued. On Monday, the main rebel group in eastern Congo, known as M23 and backed by Rwanda, threatened to renege on the U.S.-backed deal, claiming that its primary foe, the Congolese army, had broken its terms.India and PakistanMr. Trump has taken credit for mediating an end to a military escalation between the two nuclear powers that broke out after a terrorist attack in Kashmir this spring killed 26 civilians.India has acknowledged the American role in mediating but says it negotiated an end to the fighting directly with Pakistan. India claims that Pakistani officials asked for cease-fire talks under pressure from India’s military assaults. Pakistan denies this and has thanked Trump for helping to end the hostilities.The differing accounts have contributed to a deterioration of relations between Washington and New Delhi, which is also playing out in Mr. Trump’s trade war. Pakistan, which said it would nominate Mr. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation, faces U.S. tariffs of 19 percent. India, on the other hand, faces a crippling 50 percent tariff, a rate that could crush the country’s exporters.Israel and IranA damaged house in Tehran after an Israeli strike, on June 29, 2025.Credit...Majid Saeedi/Getty ImagesAfter 12 days of strikes in June that included U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, Mr. Trump abruptly announced a cease-fire agreement. He said that the United States had mediated it and claimed that Israel had turned around its warplanes at his behest.“It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!” he posted on Truth Social.Although neither side has disputed the American role in the truce, its durability remains in question. Talks have broken off between Iran and the United States on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat.And while American intelligence assesses that the U.S. bombings badly damaged Iran’s most advanced nuclear enrichment site, some experts believe that Tehran could eventually resume enriching uranium, which is needed to build a nuclear weapon, at other sites.Cambodia and ThailandPrime Minister Hun Manet of Cambodia, left, Thailand’s acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, shake hands as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia puts his arms around them.Credit...Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesThe two Southeast Asian neighbors engaged this summer in days of fighting that killed at least 42 people and displaced more than 300,000, one of the bloodiest conflicts between them in decades.At the time, the Trump administration was discussing trade deals with a host of countries, and Mr. Trump said he had told the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia that he would stop trade talks unless they agreed to a cease-fire.Two days later, officials met in Malaysia for talks organized by Malaysian and American officials and reached a deal to pause hostilities. “They will hopefully get along for many years to come,” Mr. Trump said afterward.Critics of Mr. Trump’s approach say his intervention did not address the underlying issues of the conflict, though fighting has stopped.Egypt and EthiopiaEgypt and Ethiopia face not a military conflict but a diplomatic dispute over Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam. Still, there are fears that it might descend into fighting. (Mr. Trump said in 2020 that Egypt had threatened to “blow up” the dam.)Mr. Trump’s diplomacy has done little to resolve the dispute. Ethiopia recently announced that it had completed the dam, with an official opening scheduled for next month. Egypt and Sudan continue to oppose the project, fearing it will limit the flow of water from the Nile River to their countries.Linda Qiu contributed reporting.Aug. 19, 2025, 1:46 p.m. ETKaroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Vladimir Putin has promised to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky. Asked if the Russian leader promised to sit down for a direct meeting with the Ukrainian president in the coming weeks, Leavitt said, “He has.” In comments to Russian state news media, however, Moscow hasn’t committed to a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesAug. 19, 2025, 1:29 p.m. ETMuch like President Trump, Leavitt is vague on what the U.S. means by a security guarantee. “We can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies,” she said. “The president understands security guarantees are crucially important to ensure a lasting peace, and he has directed his national security team to coordinate with our friends in Europe and also to continue to cooperate and discuss these matters with Ukraine and Russia as well.”VideoAug. 19, 2025, 1:27 p.m. ETKaroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, emphasized that the U.S. would not send troops to Ukraine as part of any security guarantee to end the Russian invasion. “The president has definitively stated U.S. boots will not be on the ground,” she said.Aug. 19, 2025, 12:23 p.m. ETNATO forces participating in “Exercise Steadfast Dart 2025” in southeastern Romania in February.Credit...Daniel Mihailescu/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Trump has suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would be fine with European troop deployments in Ukraine as part of proposed security guarantees, so long as Ukraine does not join NATO and the ground forces aren’t organized by the Western military alliance.But Moscow has rejected that idea outright on multiple occasions, including in a statement on Monday by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which called any such European deployments from NATO member countries “demonstrably unviable.”“We reiterate our longstanding position of unequivocally rejecting any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine, as this risks uncontrollable escalation with unpredictable consequences,” said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry.U.S. and European officials have been discussing what kind of security guarantees they can give Ukraine to prevent a renewed Russian attack after a peace deal, including the possibility of inserting European troops on the ground as peacekeepers.Speaking on Tuesday in an interview with “Fox and Friends,” Mr. Trump said European nations, including Britain and France, were willing to deploy forces to keep the peace. He said the United States could potentially back them with air support — but not ground troops.“They want to have boots on the ground,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, to be honest with you.”He said that “Putin is tired of it,” suggesting the Russian leader was weary of waging the war against Ukraine, which Russia started with its 2022 invasion.It’s not the first time that Mr. Trump has suggested that the Russian leader could live with an arrangement that other top Russian officials have expressly ruled out.In February, during a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Trump was asked whether Mr. Putin would agree to the deployment of European troops to Ukraine in the wake of a cease-fire deal.“He will accept that,” Mr. Trump said. “I specifically asked him that question. He has no problem with it.”Mr. Putin hasn’t commented specifically on the matter himself.But on Feb. 20, around the same time, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that contingents from NATO countries in Ukraine would be cause for concern.Earlier that month, Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, recounted how the Russian delegation had expressed opposition to the idea in talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials.“We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union, or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard,” Mr. Lavrov said on Feb. 18. “Of course, this is unacceptable to us.”Aug. 19, 2025, 11:41 a.m. ETA funeral for three Ukrainian soldiers in the western city of Lviv in December.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York TimesPresident Trump does not like using the word “cease-fire” to describe an end to the fighting in Ukraine, so European leaders from across the 27-nation European Union are pivoting away from the term, in rhetoric if not in spirit.While Mr. Trump may not want to talk about a cease-fire, he appears to be much more comfortable with the word “truce,” based on briefings that European officials received from leaders who traveled to Washington this week to meet with their American counterparts and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. That’s according to three European officials who had been briefed on the discussions, but who were not authorized to talk on the record about the internal information.It is not clear why Mr. Trump has soured on the word “cease-fire.” But some officials speculated that it may be because of a specific promise he made last week — to impose swift new economic penalties on Russia if Mr. Putin did not agree to stop fighting by the end of Friday’s summit in Alaska. Mr. Putin did not, but Mr. Trump backed off his threat.Whatever is driving the sensitivity, European officials appeared to shift their language on Tuesday. They opted for “truce,” phrases like “stop the killing,” or other words deemed more benign.It’s the latest example of how Europe’s leaders, who found themselves on a collision course with Mr. Trump on Ukraine earlier this year, have adapted their style and language to keep him onside and working toward shared geopolitical goals.António Costa, the president of the European Council, said at a news conference on Tuesday that “whether we call it a cease-fire or a truce is secondary.”Or, as President Emmanuel Macron of France told NBC in an interview following the meeting at the White House, “all of us are very clear that we want to stop the killings as soon as possible.” He added: “You can call it a cease-fire. You can call it a truce, an armistice, but we want to stop these killings.”Aug. 19, 2025, 10:49 a.m. ETThe Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, left, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, second left, accompanied President Vladimir V. Putin to Alaska on Friday.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesRussia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the country’s state-run news media on Tuesday played down the prospect of a direct meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, a day after President Trump said that he had initiated steps for a bilateral meeting between them.Russian state news media barely mentioned the possible meeting in coverage of Monday’s talks between Mr. Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and European leaders at the White House. Instead, reporters and commentators largely portrayed the meetings as proof that Mr. Trump was nudging Mr. Zelensky and European leaders to accept Russia’s terms to end the war.In an interview on state-run television on Tuesday, Mr. Lavrov said that while Russia was not against a bilateral meeting between Mr. Zelensky and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in principle, “any contacts involving top officials should be prepared very carefully.”Mr. Lavrov also referred to Mr. Zelensky dismissively as “this character” and “this man,” and suggested that the Ukrainian president must repeal laws that the Kremlin believes curtail the rights of Russian speakers in the country before entering into direct negotiations with Mr. Putin.Mr. Lavrov’s comments suggested that Moscow may be treading a fine line to make sure it doesn’t offend Mr. Trump or undermine his efforts to bring the war to an end, and offer at least a semblance of progress.Yuri V. Ushakov, the Kremlin’s foreign policy aide, said after Monday’s White House talks that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin had a call in which they discussed “exploring opportunities to bring more senior officials from both Ukraine and Russia into these direct talks.” He made no mention of whether Mr. Putin himself would participate.Mr. Ushakov’s comments, published by the Kremlin, suggested that Russia was offering these talks with more senior officials as the next step in the peace process.This year, Russia and Ukraine have conducted three largely inconclusive rounds of direct talks in Istanbul, the first such direct and public negotiations since the beginning months of the war. Ukraine and its European allies have criticized the Kremlin for sending a less senior delegation headed by Vladimir R. Medinsky, Mr. Putin’s aide and former culture minister.On Tuesday, Russian state news media portrayed the European leaders who attended the White House meetings as being dependent on, and subordinate to, Mr. Trump. The news media elevated Mr. Putin’s sway over the talks by saying that his “invisible presence was felt” at the meetings in Washington.“The opinion of Russia and Mr. Putin has been key” during the talks, said Boris Chernyshyov, a Russian lawmaker, during a prime time talk show on Channel One, one of the main television networks in Russia. He said that Europe “had failed to pull” Mr. Trump “into its camp.”According to Andrei Nikulin, a Russian political commentator, the Kremlin wants to drag out the process for as long as possible without angering Mr. Trump. In a post on Telegram, a social messaging app, Mr. Nikulin said that Russia would first insist on another meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.“After the delegations meet, it’s possible the two leaders of the opposing countries will still meet, and Trump himself will join them later,” Mr. Nikulin said. “It’s worth noting that each of these stages can be endlessly dragged out by diplomatic and bureaucratic negotiations, even under American pressure.”Aug. 19, 2025, 10:44 a.m. ETPlanning teams from the group of European countries that call themselves a “coalition of the willing” will meet with their American counterparts in the coming days to strengthen plans to deliver “robust security guarantees” to Ukraine “and prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended,” Downing Street said on Tuesday.The statement was issued after Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain on Tuesday co-chaired a virtual meeting with more than 30 leaders from the coalition of countries that have been working toward a peace agreement for Ukraine.As well as being updated on Monday’s talks in Washington, the leaders discussed how further pressure – including possible sanctions – could be placed on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Downing Street added.Aug. 19, 2025, 10:34 a.m. ETPresident Emmanuel Macron of France arriving at the White House to support President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine during talks with President Trump on Monday in Washington.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesHardening his tone as talks to end the war in Ukraine gather pace, President Emmanuel Macron of France called Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, “a predator, and an ogre at our doorstep.”The statement, made in an interview with the French TV news network LCI that was broadcast on Tuesday, was consistent with Mr. Macron’s recent warnings that Mr. Putin is not to be trusted. But it was blunter and harsher than his previous characterizations of the Russian leader.The remarks represented a considerable shift from the warmth between the two men six years ago, when Mr. Macron invited Mr. Putin to the Brégançon fort, the summer retreat of French presidents that is on the southern coast of France. Mr. Macron declared after that meeting that the “architecture of security” between the European Union and Russia needed reinvention to take account of Russian strategic concerns.Speaking after the meeting in Washington on Monday between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, which Mr. Macron and other European leaders attended, the French president called Mr. Putin “a destabilizing force” who “needs to eat for his own survival.” This appeared to be an allusion to the 2022 Russian invasion aimed at swallowing Ukraine and to Moscow’s earlier predations in Crimea and Georgia.Mr. Macron called Russia a potential threat for many European countries and warned their leaders not to be naïve. “I am not saying that France will be attacked tomorrow, but the menace is there for Europeans,” he said.In effect, Mr. Macron appears to be playing bad cop to Mr. Trump’s good cop, siding emphatically with Mr. Zelensky and repeatedly expressing pessimism about Mr. Putin’s willingness to reach a peace settlement that is not a Ukrainian capitulation.Mr. Macron has clearly been angered by Mr. Putin’s broken promises, including a pledge the Russian leader made to him not to send troops into Ukraine just before the full-scale invasion. The French leader also views the defense of Ukraine as an absolute condition for the strong and resilient Europe he seeks to build in light of American unpredictability under Mr. Trump.Aug. 19, 2025, 10:13 a.m. ETTrump said on Fox and Friends that at no point will there ever be U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of any security guarantee. The hosts asked him about any “assurances” he could make that there would be no American “boots on the ground” and he replied, “Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president.”Aug. 19, 2025, 10:08 a.m. ETA NATO exercise in June. Ukraine has continued to seek becoming a member of the organization.Credit...Bernadett Szabo/ReutersEuropean leaders at the White House on Monday floated the idea of security guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5, which obliges members to defend an ally under attack — a backdoor way of offering Ukraine the same protections without formal membership in the security organization.Ukraine has welcomed the proposal. “Our desire for NATO membership remains unchanged, but as an interim solution, we will be satisfied with any truly effective security guarantees,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s defense and intelligence committee, said in a text message.But like other Ukrainian lawmakers, Mr. Chernev also noted that the proposal was vague and needed to be worked out to determine whether it could be truly viable.Ukrainian officials argue that, without NATO membership, only a binding agreement that would oblige allies to defend the country could deter Russia from attacking again. And they stress that such an obligation must go beyond the kind of financial aid or weapon deliveries that has formed the backbone of Western support so far, and include the deployment of Western troops.“These guarantees must be legally binding and also provide for specific steps and an algorithm of actions by the guarantors in the event of repeated aggression against Ukraine,” Mr. Chernev said.The leaders of Britain, France and Germany, who have pledged to help protect Ukraine’s security as part of any peace agreement, met on Tuesday to discuss such guarantees for Ukraine.Above all, Ukraine wants to avoid signing another Budapest Memorandum, a pledge signed in 1994 that was meant to protect the country after it gained independence — to no avail.Under that accord, Ukraine agreed to give old Soviet nuclear weapons back to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Britain. But the agreement did not detail those guarantees and included no promise of military assistance in the event of an attack. Ukrainian officials say the lack of specificity gave Russia free rein to attack their country, as it did starting in 2014.President Emmanuel Macron of France, a leading backer of providing Ukraine with robust security guarantees, acknowledged that several countries that had “committed to protecting Ukraine if it were attacked” had failed to do so.“So I believe that a theoretical article is not enough,” he told reporters on Sunday.Even if Kyiv and its Western allies reach an agreement on binding guarantees modeled on NATO’s Article 5, it remains unclear whether Russia would accept them as part of a peace deal. Ukrainian officials note that Russia has long opposed NATO membership for Ukraine — so why would it agree to NATO protections in all but name?“I remain skeptical,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian Parliament.Aug. 19, 2025, 9:43 a.m. ETLara JakesLara Jakes frequently writes about weapons and diplomacy.A Patriot air defense system launcher, at an undisclosed location in Ukraine last year.Credit...Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersThe $90 billion in American weapons that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said will be part of sweeping security agreements with Western allies would both boost Ukraine’s current war footing against Russia and provide protection from future invasions.At the top of Mr. Zelensky’s list are air defense systems and war planes — two sophisticated weapons that are in short supply in Ukraine. He has long pleaded for more Patriot air defenses and F-16 fighter jets to counter relentless Russian airstrikes that have hammered Ukraine’s cities, military bases, and fuel and power facilities.Missiles, artillery rounds, long-range launchers, tanks, jamming and counter-jamming equipment and other arms to help Ukraine hold the line against Russia will almost certainly also be part of the package, which Mr. Zelensky said was still being discussed.But Ukraine will also need weapons to rebuild its military if a peace agreement is ever reached, to deter Russia from a new invasion in the coming years. They would include armored vehicles to move and support infantry troops, and replacing pickup trucks that Ukraine is currently using, said Rafael Loss, a weapons expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.He said Ukraine also will likely want ships, including maritime mine sweepers, to support its navy in the Black Sea.Where the $90 billion will come from remains unclear. Mr. Zelensky did not say that Ukraine would provide the money, and it is likely that European countries and allies of NATO will foot much of the bill.“There are some question marks on the exact size of that promise, and the timeline along which those funds would be spent,” Mr. Loss said on Tuesday.He said it would be “logical” that at least some of the weapons could be bought with a NATO fund that has already committed nearly $100 billion in military aid for Ukraine, at least some of which has already been spent, and in bilateral deals under a program President Trump announced earlier this summer. “But there’s not much clarity,” Mr. Loss said.If other European countries do pay for weapons to be sent to Ukraine, such a plan would also pose a risk to Europe’s efforts to pump money into its own defense industry.The American-made weapons likely would be produced largely by American workers. That could siphon funds from a European Union plan announced this year to rearm Europe by rebuilding its defense industry.In theory, at least, Ukraine could buy some of the weapons itself — including with revenues from selling domestically made drones to the United States. Mr. Zelensky said the drone deal was part of the security agreement discussed at the White House on Monday, highlighting Ukraine’s global prowess in the ever-evolving development of remote-controlled aircraft and other equipment.Ukraine must first lift broad restrictions on exporting weapons that were put in place early in the war to ensure its military was fully armed. Ukraine’s legislature is expected in coming weeks to vote to allow more exports.Aug. 19, 2025, 9:25 a.m. ETAntónio Costa, the president of the European Council, is speaking at a news conference following the meeting of leaders from the European Union’s 27 member countries discussing the war in Ukraine. He said European leaders “are working hand in hand with United States. Their commitment to participate in the security guarantees with the Europeans and other like-minded countries is a very important step, a very welcome step.”Aug. 19, 2025, 8:37 a.m. ET“I really want to get to heaven,” President Trump said on “Fox & Friends,” explaining his motivation for trying to end the war in Ukraine. He joked that he knew he was “on the bottom of the totem pole,” though.Aug. 19, 2025, 8:33 a.m. ETSpeaking on “Fox & Friends,” President Trump said that he did not call President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia while the European leaders were in the room at the White House because that would be “disrespectful” to Putin. He said that there was “a warmth there” between himself and the Russian leader.Aug. 19, 2025, 8:16 a.m. ETEuropean leaders wrapped up their Coalition of the Willing meeting, and now a larger group — heads of state or government from all 27 members of the European Union — gathered together on a video call to discuss Monday’s meetings with President Trump in Washington. “As a first step, Russia must immediately end the violence,” António Costa, president of that group, posted on social media as the meeting started.Aug. 19, 2025, 8:14 a.m. ETPresident Trump with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the White House on Monday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesHe wore the right clothes. He treated President Trump with the deference he likes. And President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine agreed to sit down with Russia’s president to talk about settling their war, one of Mr. Trump’s main wishes.Mr. Zelensky, backed by his European allies, emerged unscathed from his Monday meeting at the White House with Mr. Trump, unlike the situation after their disastrous last meeting in the Oval Office in February.Ukrainians collectively breathed a sigh of relief.“Overall, I’m more optimistic after these meetings than before,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian Parliament. “My nightmare of Trump presenting Zelensky with an unacceptable ultimatum in front of correspondents in the Oval Office did not materialize. The atmosphere was friendly enough.”Mr. Zelensky also avoided, at least publicly, a tricky conversation on any possible territorial concessions — what Mr. Trump has described as land swaps. On Monday, even the land that Russia controls in Ukraine was in dispute, with Mr. Zelensky saying the map shown in the White House was not accurate.“There was no — at least from what we can tell — aggressive pressure from Trump demanding that Ukraine immediately agree to territorial concessions to Russia or make unilateral concessions in favor of a peace deal” on Monday, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a leading political analyst in Ukraine. “That did not happen, and many were deeply worried it would.”The Ukrainian president also appeared to put the onus on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to either come to the negotiating table or risk again alienating Mr. Trump, whose opinions on how to settle this war seem to shift depending on the last person he met.A Ukrainian soldier near destroyed buildings on Sunday in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Russia holds about three quarters of the territory and is demanding full control.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York TimesSo far, Mr. Putin, who met with Mr. Trump in Alaska on Friday, has not agreed to meet personally with Mr. Zelensky.Yuri Ushakov, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy aide, said on Rossiya 24, a state-run news channel, that the Russian president and Mr. Trump spoke for 40 minutes after Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Zelensky on Monday. They agreed, Mr. Ushakov said, that senior negotiators would be appointed for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine.Meetings between senior negotiators from Ukraine and Russia have been held before, with few obvious results except prisoner exchanges.Mr. Trump has made ending the war in Ukraine a signature goal of his administration. During his campaign he promised to end it within 24 hours of taking office; on Monday, while holding meetings with European allies and Mr. Zelensky, he acknowledged doing so was tougher than he had thought.Mr. Putin, who launched the full-scale invasion into Ukraine in February 2022, gave a kind of answer to Monday’s meeting in Washington.Overnight, Russia launched 270 attack drones and decoys at Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Russia had been slowing down drone attacks for several weeks, and last night’s barrage was the largest since July 31, about the time when rumblings about a potential meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin first surfaced.Mr. Trump has made it clear that neither he nor his wife likes seeing images of civilians being killed by drone strikes in Ukraine.Outside an apartment building hit during a Russian attack in Kyiv last month. The night after the talks saw one of Russia’s largest wave of drone attacks in weeks.Credit...Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersFor Ukrainians, the two most important issues in any peace talks are security guarantees to prevent Russia from invading again in the future, and what happens with the Ukrainian territory that Russia now holds.Ukraine and its European allies have also pushed for an immediate cease-fire first, and then negotiations. Mr. Trump abandoned that idea after meeting with Mr. Putin, although he could change his mind.While security guarantees were discussed on Monday, nothing specific was outlined.Mr. Trump said security guarantees could be met by European countries in coordination with the United States, after the war ends. He also said the United States would “help” Europe offer protection to Ukraine but did not describe what that would mean. When asked a direct question, Mr. Trump did not rule out putting U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine.At a news conference after the meetings, Mr. Zelensky said the discussion on security guarantees included plans for Ukraine to purchase $90 billion in American weapons through Europe; the United States would also buy drones from Ukraine.Under the Biden administration, the United States did not require Ukraine to purchase weapons; instead, it earmarked more than $65 billion in military aid for the country.The most concrete result of Monday’s meetings was a decision that more meetings will likely be held, analysts said. They also pointed out that the European presence helped avoid anything going awry.Mr. Zelensky with Mr. Trump and European leaders in the White House on Monday. The Europeans “divided the labor,” one Ukrainian analyst said approvingly.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn late February, Mr. Zelensky was berated by Mr. Trump and by Vice President JD Vance, described as ungrateful for U.S. aid and called disrespectful for not wearing a suit and tie. He was practically evicted from the White House.Having all the Europeans at the meetings helped take pressure off Mr. Zelensky and also helped him make the case for getting a cease-fire and concrete security guarantees, analysts said on Tuesday. Mr. Trump treated both European leaders and Mr. Zelensky politely, said Volodymyr Dubovyk, the director of the Center for International Studies at Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University.“I think it went really well,” Mr. Dubovyk said. He added that the Europeans took turns pressing for goals like an immediate cease-fire, a strong army for Ukraine and security guarantees. “The Europeans divided the labor. I think they coordinated who was going to talk about what.”On Tuesday afternoon Ukrainian time, Mr. Zelensky posted on social media that leaders were already working on security guarantees. He added that the negotiations on Monday were “truly a significant step toward ending the war and ensuring the security of Ukraine and our people.”After his meeting with Mr. Putin on Friday, Mr. Trump seemed to back Mr. Putin’s long-term goal of making Ukraine cede all of a resource-rich area called the Donbas, made up primarily of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, even the parts still controlled by Ukraine.Agreeing to such a deal, which Ukrainians see as a slap in the face, would probably be political suicide for Mr. Zelensky. Ukraine’s Constitution prohibits surrendering territory. Russia now occupies almost 20 percent of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk, almost all of the adjacent Luhansk region and the entire Crimean Peninsula.Yevhen Tuzov, 39, a volunteer from the occupied city of Mariupol who works with people affected by the war, described the idea of giving up land as unlawful. “This is robbery — this is banditry,” he said. If Ukraine ceded territory, he asked, then what would stop Mr. Putin from demanding more?Anna Yepinina, 33, a communications manager from the city of Rubizhne in Luhansk, said on Tuesday that she feared she may never again be able to see her parents, who still lived there.“No one has the right to decide whether those borders can be changed,” she said. “Ukraine is Ukraine, and this is our land.”Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting.Aug. 19, 2025, 8:13 a.m. ETPresident Trump said in an interview with “Fox & Friends” that Crimea was “the apple of Ukraine” and claimed that former President Barack Obama “gave it away.” It was unclear what he was talking about; Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and while Obama’s response was criticized by some as insufficient, there was a sanctions effort and the United States condemned the annexation.Aug. 19, 2025, 8:06 a.m. ETPresident Trump just said that he has a “good relationship” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia but it only mattered “if we get things done,” as he began an interview with “Fox & Friends.”Aug. 19, 2025, 7:47 a.m. ETRescue workers at the site of a Russian strike on a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Ivan Samoilov/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRussia attacked Ukraine overnight with 270 drones, as well as missiles, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders held talks with President Trump aimed at finding a path toward a peace deal.The Russian attacks targeted energy and transport infrastructure in the industrial city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine’s Poltava region, where dozens of explosions were heard, according to the city’s mayor, Vitalii Maletsky. He said that more than 1,400 residences and more than 100 businesses had been left without power as a result.There were no immediate reports of fatalities from the attacks, which came a day after Ukrainian authorities said that 14 people had been killed and dozens injured in Russian attacks on large Ukrainian cities and villages near the front line.Before this week’s strikes, Russia appeared to have scaled back its air attacks on Ukraine, in what Ukrainian officials and analysts described as an attempt by the Kremlin to curry favor with Mr. Trump amid peace efforts.But Mr. Maletsky said on social media that the attacks showed that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia “wants to destroy Ukraine.”The attacks showed the importance of securing peace with robust security guarantees, said Andriy Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister.“This once again demonstrates how critical it is to end the killing,” Mr. Sybiha said on X.Russia also struck the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, causing power cuts and damage to infrastructure, Viacheslav Chaus, the head of the regional military administration, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.Russia’s Defense Ministry rarely comments directly on strikes in civilian areas of Ukraine, but on Tuesday it said in a statement on social media that its military had conducted a strike with long-range weapons overnight against an oil refinery that was supplying fuel to Ukrainian forces fighting in the contested Donbas region. It did not specify where the strike was.