Doing so would require the Russian leader to “accept the failure of sitting down with a president he considers a joke from a country that doesn’t exist”

The European political heavy-hitters were left out of President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday.

Just after noon, European leaders including Macron, Starmer, von der Leyen, Rutte, and Meloni began arriving one by one at the White House. According to the White House schedule, Trump will first meet with Zelensky at 1:15 p.m. before greeting the European leaders, followed by a multilateral meeting with all parties at 3:00 p.m.

A summit in Paris six years ago was the first and only time the two presidents ever met, flanked by French president Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s then-chancellor Angela Merkel. At the time, Putin and Zelensky were looking to hash out a ceasefire deal for war in Donbas in Ukraine’s east, where Russia-backed forces were fighting Ukrainian troops.

President Trump seeks to broker a meeting of the two leaders to end Europe’s most destructive war in generations.

Last month was the deadliest since Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine three and a half years ago. In July alone, 286 civilians were killed and another 1,388, according to official data.

Trump gave his assurance that no American soldiers would be sent to protect Ukraine as part of a peace deal with Russia

President Donald Trump is willing to “crush” Russia’s economy with sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy