Trump-Putin summit: Zelenskyy to travel to DC on Monday to meet with President Trump

Trump invited European leaders to join the meeting with the Ukrainian president.

Following what was described as a “lengthy” phone call with President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he will travel to Washington on Monday to meet with President Donald Trump. A White House official said Trump has invited European leaders to join the meeting on Monday afternoon.

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Alaska on Friday and while Putin mentioned an "agreement" in the post-meeting news conference and Trump said "great progress" was made, there was no mention of a ceasefire.


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Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Friday as Trump and Putin meet

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Kyiv, the nation's capital, on Friday as Trump and Putin are set to soon meet in Alaska.

Zelenskyy said on social media he held a meeting with various government offices in Ukraine to discuss diplomatic work.

"In particular, we addressed the funding of Ukraine’s Defense Forces, auditing the effectiveness of coalitions with partners, special formats, the substance of our bilateral relations in key global areas, and our work at the EU level. I instructed that the foreign policy plan be updated for the period through the end of the year," Zelenskyy wrote on X.


Presidential historian weighs in on Trump-Putin summit

As President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared for their historic meeting in Alaska, Rice University presidential historian Douglas Brinkley noted the state's significant role in past diplomatic encounters.

"Alaska has been used as a stage in the diplomatic game before," Brinkley told ABC News, citing meetings between Richard Nixon and Pope Paul II, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan. More recently, President Barack Obama used the state as a backdrop for discussions on climate change.

The choice of Alaska carried weight given its history with Russia, which sold the territory to the United States in 1867 for $7 million after the Crimean War, Brinkley said.

"It's bittersweet for Russia," Brinkley said, explaining that Russia sold the territory to prevent Britain from acquiring it.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's arrival in Anchorage wearing a Soviet Union sweater signaled deeper implications for the upcoming summit, according to Brinkley. The historian suggested the meeting could extend beyond discussions of a Ukraine ceasefire, potentially leading to additional summits similar to the series of meetings between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear weapons reduction.

-ABC News' Docquan Louallen


Kremlin spokesperson previews potentially long meeting

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in a Russian state media readout, previewed a potentially long meeting between the U.S. and Russian delegations.

"We are proceeding on the assumption that there will first be a one-on-one conversation. It turns out that this will be attended by aides. Then there will be negotiations between the delegations, possibly in the form of a working lunch. Then the leaders will leave for a while and then gather for a joint press conference," Peskov said.

"In general, we can imagine that it will take at least 6-7 hours," Peskov said.


Trump says Putin bringing business people from Russia to summit

President Donald Trump told reporters on his flight to Alaska that if progress is made in his meeting with Putin, he would consider talking about business deals with Russians. Trump said the Russian president is bringing a lot of business people from Russia to Alaska, but said that nothing will be done until the war is done.

"If we make progress, I would discuss it, because that's one of the things that they would like. They'd like to get a piece of what I built in terms of the economy," Trump said.

"And I noticed he's bringing a lot of businesspeople from Russia, and that's good. I like that, because they want to do business, but they're not doing business until we get the war settled," Trump added.