Is US turning its focus back to Russia? Volodymyr Zelenskyy discusses 'real peace' with Donald Trump at NATO summit

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the NATO summit at The Hague.

The discussion, which lasted almost an hour, is the first face-to-face conversation between the two since April this year, when they both had attended a funeral ceremony for the late Pope Francis at the Vatican's St. Peter’s Basilica.

“We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace,” Zelenskyy explained, in an X post after the discussion.

The primary agenda at this NATO summit at the Netherlands is a new defence investment pledge, expected to counter Russia's enormous military spending, which poses a direct threat to the European Union.

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This comes in addition to its acts of sabotage and formidable cyber warfare that is “already a direct threat” to the EU, the bloc's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had said, in a plenary session prior to the summit.

In a press conference following the summit, Trump—who agreed today to abide by the NATO's Article 5 about solidarity in the event of external threats against the bloc—called the increase in defence spending a “big win for Europe and, actually, for Western civilization”.

Increasing defence spending across the (NATO) board, relative to GDP, is something Trump has sought since 2017, as he felt that the US had been unfairly shouldering most of the spending burden.

When asked about the US strikes on Iran, Trump, who insists that "the war is done", hinted at a possibility of restarting talks with Iran next week.

“I’ll tell you what, we’re going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said.

When asked about Moscow, however, he explained that the Russia-Ukraine conflict was a "mess" for Putin, and that the latter wanted to end it.

“He’d like to get out of this thing. It’s a mess for him ... He called the other day, and he said, ‘Can I help you with Iran?’ I said ‘no, you can help me with Russia'."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz—one of the few world leaders who justified the US strikes on Iran as a means to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment programme—also called on Trump to separately impose sanctions on Russia, apart from the EU's own upcoming sanctions package. 

“Europe stepping up to take more responsibility for security will help prevent future disasters like the horrible situation with Russia and Ukraine ... And hopefully we’re going to get that solved,” Trump told reporters at the post-summit press conference.

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