President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenski, held a bilateral meeting on Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly, focusing on the diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Upon receiving the Ukrainian president, Trump expressed optimism about the prospects for peace. "We have a very good relationship, both of us. The president and I are trying to find a solution, and I believe it will happen. I truly believe that," he stated before the press, as reported by the official White House account on the social media platform X.
The U.S. president also stressed the strength of ties with Europe and referred to the recent agreement on Greenland as an example of the current diplomatic dynamism. "You saw what just happened with Greenland, which was something very special," Trump added before inviting Zelensky to speak.
The meeting had been announced days earlier by Zelenski himself, who confirmed the appointment after a phone call with Trump and stated that the meeting "could change many things" for the conflict resolution efforts.
Before the meeting, Zelensky had announced that a new agreement on drones was ready to be signed. In the meeting, both leaders discussed a possible truce in the attacks against energy infrastructure and other de-escalation measures.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who accompanied Trump to the General Assembly, had anticipated that the issue of the energy truce would be on the table.
The meeting is part of a diplomatic process that accelerated at the beginning of September, when Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner first traveled to Moscow and then to Kiev to revive peace talks, resulting in a temporary truce of three days in airstrikes against the capitals of both countries.
On September 14, Trump announced that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to attack each other's energy infrastructures, a move that was presented as a concrete step toward de-escalation.
Two days before the meeting in New York, Washington also approved a military sale to Ukraine valued at 2.68 billion dollars, a sign that U.S. support continues alongside diplomatic efforts.
This meeting is the second face-to-face encounter between the two leaders in less than two months: on July 28, Zelensky visited the White House to discuss air defense issues, licenses for producing Patriot interceptors, and the reactivation of peace negotiations with Russia.
According to the Kyiv Independent, Zelensky arrived in the United States with the intention of also advocating for a ceasefire in the Black Sea and additional de-escalation measures, in what the Ukrainian leader himself has termed his "number one priority": the peaceful path.
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