Has US agreed to troops in Ukraine? Big takeaways from Trump and Zelenskyy’s talks with European leaders

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office at the White House. We have seen this scene before, but Monday’s meeting (August 18) was unlike the February one where the US president berated his Ukrainian counterpart, following which Zelenskyy abruptly left the premises.

This time around, there was no shouting match and even a few moments of levity. Also, on Monday, Zelenskyy wasn’t alone; he was accompanied by a remarkable delegation of European leaders — Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, the United Kingdom’s Keir Starmer, Nato’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Council President Ursula Von der Leyen, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni — who rushed to the US in support of the Ukrainian leader.