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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that he had a “good” conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine as the war with Russia enters its fourth year.

Zelenskyy, speaking at the White House alongside Trump and European leaders, made clear that security guarantees remain at the center of Ukraine’s struggle for survival and future independence. “The first one is security guarantees. And we are very happy with President [Trump], that all the leaders are here, and security in Ukraine depends on the United States and European countries,” Zelenskyy said. “So if the United States can give a very strong signal to Russia, it is very important, and we are ready to work on it. We believe it’s important,” he added, without getting into detail about what those guarantees might look like.

Trump also stressed security, but he underlined that most of the burden needs to be carried by Europe. The U.S. president also noted that a solution to the war is not possible without difficult and “painful” discussions about territory. “We’re going to help them, and we’re going to make it very secure,” Trump said. “We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact. That means the war zone, the war line center.”

The talks in the White House came as Western leaders have been sharply divided over how best to balance support for Ukraine and its military offensives against the goal of a negotiated peace. Trump is seen as being open to significant territorial concessions, while Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders must be preserved.

Pressure on Russia: Sanctions, Ceasefire, NATO Access

In Washington, leaders are also sharpening their debate over economic pressure on Moscow and its trading partners. Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has proposed that the Trump administration should go after Russia’s finances more aggressively and target any country that still buys Russian oil. He is co-sponsoring a bill that would give Trump the authority to levy tariffs of as much as 500 percent on imports from countries that continue to do business with Russia.

“My advice to President Trump and [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] is, you’ve got to convince Putin that if this war doesn’t end justly and honorably with Ukraine making concessions also, we’re going to destroy the Russian economy,” Graham said on Fox News. “We’re going to crush you, we’re going to take you down,” Graham added. Graham went on to specifically name China as a key actor that can influence Putin. “The second most important person on the planet to end this war is President Xi in China,” Graham said. Washington should make clear that there will be no end to the war until Beijing withdraws its support, Graham added.

Trump has already shown an appetite for using tariffs to punish countries, threatening to slap a 50 percent levy on India earlier this year in part over its purchases of Russian oil. Graham suggested such a move against China would be sufficient to change the war’s course in a short time.

The European Union, for its part, is gearing up to adopt a 19th package of sanctions against Moscow in the coming days or weeks. The new sanctions, designed to reduce Russia’s energy revenues and access to Western financing and markets, are expected to add more names to the blacklist and close loopholes that have facilitated sanctions evasion over the past three years.

Western coordination means that Russia is now the most sanctioned country in modern history—subject to more restrictions and more economic isolation than Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela.

Sanctions, however, are not the only sticking point between Trump and his European interlocutors. They also asked Trump to agree that a ceasefire is needed before meaningful negotiations can take place. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz argued for a temporary pause in the fighting to give future talks some credibility. “I can’t imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire,” Merz said. Trump disagreed, arguing that several of the six peace agreements he has claimed to broker in recent months were signed without a ceasefire. “You have a ceasefire, and they rebuild and rebuild and rebuild,” Trump said, though he did concede that the main point of a truce would be the near-immediate end to civilian deaths.

The White House also welcomed Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who was elected in March 2024, to the meeting. Stubb has been open about his skepticism regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to respect a ceasefire and has emphasized that Finland shares an 800-mile border with Russia and has firsthand experience of dealing with the country. The president has also been viewed as one of Trump’s closest European allies, saying, “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.”

Zelenskyy and Trump have demonstrated a striking contrast between Ukraine’s request for long-term Western guarantees and Trump’s insistence that Kyiv should make major concessions. The deep fault lines in Washington and Europe on how best to end the war have sharpened in the run-up to fresh sanctions in the coming days, the Trump administration’s consideration of tariff threats against some of the world’s largest economies, and continuing battles on the ground.