Finnish president compares Russians to Huns in White House talks with Trump

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), interesting topics were raised during meetings between European leaders and Donald Trump in Washington.

The day of diplomatic maneuvers began after Trump’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, followed by a broader meeting with European leaders who joined the Ukrainian president to establish a common position to end the war.

European officials were encouraged by their discussions regarding Ukraine’s security guarantees and the opportunity to resist Vladimir Putin’s territorial demands in Ukraine.

However, it remains unclear what the White House will propose to bridge the sharp differences between Moscow and Kyiv, and what kind of role the US will play in helping European countries secure peace.

Britain and other European powers proposed the creation of an “assurance force” to be deployed to Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement to deter Russian aggression.

In a social media post, Trump stated that the security guarantees European countries would provide to Ukraine were also discussed in the White House talks and that the US would take on a “coordination” role in this matter.

European officials announced that Trump and European leaders decided that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would lead a task force of national security advisors and NATO officials to draft security guarantees for Ukraine.

According to European officials, the security guarantees will consist of four components: military presence, air defense, armaments, and monitoring the cessation of hostilities.

Officials said there are several ways for the US to provide indirect military support to European peacekeeping forces while avoiding sending American troops to the field.

Which territories would be ceded to Russia is another point of contention. A map of eastern Ukraine, prepared by the US and examined by Trump and Zelenskyy, shows that 76% of the Donetsk region—which Russia wants and where some of Ukraine’s strongest defense lines are located—is under Moscow’s control.

Officials stated that European leaders, summarizing Ukraine’s potential territorial losses in a language Trump could understand, compared Russia’s demand for the entire Donbass region to asking the US to cede a territory the size of Trump’s home state, Florida.

In this context, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters after the White House meeting, “For Russia to demand that Ukraine cede part of the Donbass is, to give an example to understand the scale, equivalent to asking the US to cede Florida.”

During the closed-door meeting, Finnish President Alexander Stubb described the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk as a “fortress against the Huns.” According to officials, this description seemed to impress Trump.

According to officials, Zelenskyy did not reject a land swap in his talks with Trump, but he said it would be difficult to displace the population and override Ukraine’s constitutional provisions that prohibit ceding its territory. Zelenskyy indicated that he could consider “proportional swaps.”