US President Donald Trump piled pressure on Kyiv just hours before a critical meeting with Ukraine’s president and several European leaders over Russia’s invasion.
Though Trump appeared to make concessions in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, European officials viewed his openness to a US security guarantee as a positive and hoped to make further headway during talks in Washington today.
Ahead of the meeting, however, Trump posted on social media that Ukraine should surrender Crimea and forego any hopes of joining NATO. Ukraine’s — and Europe’s — challenge “is to get Trump off the path that Putin has laid out for him,” the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator wrote, warning that they were entering “the lion’s den.”