I think that we had very good
conversation with President Trump.
>> Very good.
>> And it really was the best one uh or
sorry maybe the best one will be in the
future.
>> I think if we play this well we could
end this and we have to end this. We
have to stop the killing. We have to
stop the destruction of Ukraine's
infrastructure.
>> Now we are here um to work together with
you on a just and lasting peace for
Ukraine. Stop the killing. This is
really our common interest. Stop the
killing. The next steps ahead are the
more complicated ones now. The the path
is open. You opened it last uh Friday,
but now the way is open for complicated
negotiations.
>> Everybody around this table is in favor
of peace
and uh and we work very hard and we've
worked very hard during the past few
years to have a peace which is a robust
and long-standing peace. European
leaders getting their say on the matter
of what happens next in Ukraine. Peace
front and center, but details we were
hearing from Mets are going to be
complicated and how we make this work
has yet to be determined. Let's find out
all the other takeaways we got from the
events in DC last night. Ole Crook joins
us with the details. Ollie.
>> Yeah, that's right. guy, you can really
sort of always rely on the Germans for
that sober perspective to focus on the
difficulties ahead. And I think that
that is something that you can't really
sort of underplay at this point. All of
that being said, just at a very broad
level, this is a meeting that went much
better, of course, for Zalinsky than it
did back in February. This is a
situation in which European leaders are
very conscious of the fact that the
Trump train is leaving the station. And
the only thing worse than being on a
train whose direction you don't know is
entirely where it's headed. You don't
not necessarily familiar with the route
is not being on the train. So they are
making a fullthroated effort to get on
board completely. They thanked Donald
Trump repeatedly and there are sort of
three main priorities that they wanted
to take away from this meeting. The
first was to get more detail on what
these article 5 like security guarantees
that the United States now has been
talking about for the first time over
the last 48 hours. What do those
actually include? What is Europe's role
within that? That is something that we
are starting to get more clarity on. We
still have a lot of ambiguity around it,
but it's clear that this architecture is
being worked on. this idea of a
ceasefire. This was really pushed by Mak
in Meritz. It's something that Trump
really has sort of been pushing back
against now over the last 48 hours since
that meeting um in Alaska. There's
always a question also about the
trilateral meeting going forward. When
will that happen between Trump uh Putin
and Zalinsky and of course I think
they'll also be reassured by the fact
that territory did was not something
that was so um prominent in the
conversation. The pressure on Zalinski
to give up territory. Trump has been
reiterating that this is a Ukrainian
decision. Have a listen though to the
conversation that we had in the Oval
Office. A little flavor of the change in
tone that we had between Zilinsky and
Trump.
>> We need to stop this war to stop Russia
and we need support American and
European partners. We will do our best
uh for this.
>> If everything works out well today,
we'll have a trilat and I think there
will be a reasonable chance of ending
the war when we do that.
And sort of looking ahead to what is
next, we got some idea of what Trump has
in mind in terms of the sequencing. He
came out on truth so social saying this.
At the conclusion of the meetings, I
called President Putin and began the
arrangements for a meeting at a location
yet to be determined between President
Putin and President Zilinski. After the
meeting takes place, we will have a
trilat which would be between uh the two
presidents plus myself. We are starting
to see some reporting here um from
Reuters recently that this meeting could
take place um in Hungary as soon as in
the next two weeks. That being said, you
know, no one expected the Putin Trump
meeting to take place in Alaska, so we
take that with a grain of salt. All of
this being said, the European leaders
are unified. They came to DC with a
single message, but they still need to
go back to their homes in Europe and
sell this at home. There is a lot of
money that will be involved in whatever
article 5 style like security guarantees
looks like. There will also be a
question about boots on the ground
looking forward. This is something that
I have spoken to many German officials
about over the last few months. It is
something that the Germans, for example,
a large supporter of Ukraine, have been
very reticent to sign on for. So, there
is a huge amount of work still to do in
the future. The what is very clear it
seems from this meeting is that this
architecture of what security guarantees
uh will look like has become clear and
it's something that they're all very
much working on over the last few weeks
and continue into the next few weeks.