U.S. and European officials started work on bolstering Ukraine's military, part of a package of security guarantees that will open a path to a landmark meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The guarantees, which will be fleshed out by military and intelligence officials, are aimed at allowing Ukraine to boost troop numbers without limitations, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
The aim is to avoid Russia demanding restrictions on the size of Kyiv's military as part of a future agreement to end the war.
A White House summit between President Donald Trump, Zelenskyy and several European leaders on Monday yielded a clearer commitment from the U.S. administration to help guarantee Ukraine's security. Those talks allayed concerns in Kyiv and Europe for now that the U.S. leader had tacked toward Moscow after talks with Putin in Alaska.
"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 in a post on Truth Social.
European Union leaders met on Tuesday to be briefed on the outcome of the talks in Washington.
A package of security guarantees would also build on the work of the so-called coalition of the willing, a European group led by the U.K. and France, and is expected to include a multinational force in the future, said the people. Its format is yet to be defined, they said.
Leaders showed broad support for "Article 5-like" guarantees -- a reference to NATO's mutual defense clause and a formula originally proposed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni -- at Monday's meeting, the people said. They cautioned that the exact details and the U.S. role in the potential arrangement will have to be first worked out by officials.
The contours of the emerging proposal suggest that the beefed-up Ukrainian armed forces would become the first line of defense in the event of a ceasefire. A multinational force from the coalition of the willing countries would be deployed further away from the frontline with the role of the U.S. reduced to providing a backstop, possibly in the form of intelligence and air defenses.
Much remains elusive. A European official cautioned that Putin still scored a major win over the last week in avoiding fresh U.S. sanctions. And a risk remains that Trump can blame Zelenskyy and the Europeans should an impasse emerge in the coming weeks, the person said.
But if Trump follows through with his pledge on guarantees, Putin may be forced to break his red lines or risk a rupture with Trump, the person said.
Much of the effort, including the purchase of weapons, is expected to rest on Europe's shoulders.
Trump and a core group of European leaders are likely to hold a call in the near future to track their officials' progress and agree on further details, said the people.
The U.S. president told reporters Monday that "the European nations are going to take a lot of the burden" and the U.S. would "help them and we're going to make it very secure."
Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement it wouldn't accept troops from NATO countries in Ukraine.
Trump's special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff, said on Sunday that Moscow was open to Ukraine receiving guarantees, including Article 5-like language, from the U.S. and other nations.
Any agreement would stop short of NATO membership for Ukraine, which remains a red line in Moscow and has been ruled out by several members, including the U.S. The Kremlin has proposed guarantees in the past that would be designed in such a way as to be ineffective, for example by giving Russia a veto.
Trump called Putin after the White House gathering and urged the Russian president to start making arrangements for a meeting with Zelenskyy at a location to be determined.
"After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself," he said.
It's unclear whether the Russian leader will agree to such a meeting. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said only that Trump and Putin had discussed the idea.
Going into Monday's White House gathering, Ukraine and its European allies were concerned that Trump would push Kyiv to make territorial concessions.
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede control of its entire Donbas region of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, Bloomberg reported previously. That would hand Russia a victory it's been unable to achieve militarily since fighting first erupted in Donbas in 2014, and in an area where Ukraine retains heavily-fortified defenses.
Russia would also halt advancing its claims over the parts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions that it doesn't already control, effectively freezing the battle lines at their current positions. The Kremlin could also potentially withdraw troops from areas of northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border where its forces control only small pockets of land.
Trump has previously signaled that concessions over land would need to be part of any agreement.
Territorial issues would be reserved for direct discussions between Zelenskyy and Putin, the Ukrainian president said on Monday.
After meeting Putin in Alaska last week, Trump backed away from his earlier push for an immediate ceasefire and threats to impose sanctions on Moscow if it refused.
The U.S. president was cold on both matters on Monday, but there was broad agreement that the killing in Ukraine must stop, the people said.
Given the stakes and risks that remain, European leaders leaving the White House on Monday sounded a positive tone on how it went.
"It could have gone differently, but my expectations aren't only met, but exceeded when it comes to today's meeting," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.
Still, the exchanges took place as Russian launched an overnight strike aiming at Ukrainian oil and gas infrastructure in the central Poltava region. The city of Kremenchuk, home to the war-battered nation's biggest refiner, suffered its heaviest attack since the beginning of the full-scare war, local authorities said.
"Now it is up to Putin to put words into action," Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told reporters in Espoo, Finland on Tuesday, pointing to Russia's recent attacks. "We haven't seen anything from Russia yet which would prove that they are ready to actually be involved in a true peace process. They are masters in buying time."
With assistance from Olesia Safronova, Kirsi Heikel, Andrea Palasciano and Maxim Edwards.
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