Donald Trump said arrangements were under way for a face to face meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be followed by a trilateral meeting between the two and the US president.
Writing on his Truth Social site after meetings with Ukraine’s president and European leaders ended at the White House on Monday, Trump said: “I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy.”
He added: “After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”
The US president also said after talks with leaders from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the EU and Nato that Europe could provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a Russia peace deal, with Washington taking an oversight role.
“During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Here are the key Trump news of the day:
Trump tells Zelenskyy ceasefire not needed for peace deal
Donald Trump has ruled out a ceasefire in Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies visited the White House to push for US-backed security guarantees as part of any long-term peace deal.
The US president, who only last week warned Russia of “very severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin failed to agree to a halt the fighting, made clear on Monday he had reversed his position.
Welcoming Zelenskyy to the hastily assembled meeting at the Oval Office, Trump referred to other conflicts which he claimed to have ended, telling reporters: “I don’t think you’d need a ceasefire. If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war – I didn’t do any ceasefires.”
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Trump says lawyers are drafting executive order to end mail-in voting
Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots.
In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”
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Democrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral map
Texas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers are set to convene in the state capitol to kick off a rapid push to get voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.
The California effort is in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there to add five Republican seats. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.
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Newsmax to pay $67m to Dominion to settle US election defamation lawsuit
The conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.
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What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 17 August 2025.
