National Guard troops in DC are now armed, defense official says

Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, on Monday ruled out any NATO security guarantees for Ukraine -- despite Steve Witkoff's statement that this is something Vladimir Putin has agreed to.

"Any scenarios involving a NATO military contingent in Ukraine are unacceptable and could lead to an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict," Zakharova said.

Witkoff told CNN over the weekend that Russia agreed to "Article 5-like" protection for Ukraine, and several European leaders pressed Trump to model security guarantees for Ukraine off the NATO alliance. Trump on Monday said, "President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine."

A repeated refrain from European leaders during remarks ahead of their meeting was the need for security guarantees for Ukraine.

"We will talk about many important topics. The first one is security guarantees, how to be sure that it won't happen again, which is the precondition of every kind of peace," Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that "when we speak about security guarantees, we speak about the whole security of the European continent. And this is why we are all united here with Ukraine on this matter."

That point was echoed by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said he believes "with the right approach" they can make "real progress, particularly on the security guarantees."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his remarks that it was "very important that the United States gives such strong signal and is ready for security guarantees."

For his part, President Trump said at the table that he believed they will all "come to a resolution today, I think, on almost everything, including probably the security."

In his remarks at the table with other European leaders, Finnish President Alexander Stubb expressed optimism at ending the war, saying, "I think in the past two weeks, we've probably had more progress in ending this war than we have in the past 3 1/2 years."

He said the gathering of the leaders at the White House is "very much symbolic in the sense that it's team Europe and United States helping Ukraine."

"And the progress that we're looking out of this meeting is about the security guarantees, which are a big part of this," he said.

To those in the media wondering why he is at the table, Stubb referenced Finland's "long border" with Russia and its own past conflicts, including the Continuation War.

"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, find and get a lasting and just peace," he said. "The situation is very difficult, but that's why we're here."

President Donald Trump, wrapping up a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, said he believed they'd know soon if this conflict can be brought to a close.

"In a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we're going to know whether or not we're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue," Trump said. "We'll do the best to get it ended."