Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and United States President Donald Trump have held talks on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague, with sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, and arms procurement for Kyiv on the agenda.

Zelenskyy said he discussed how to achieve a “real peace” and “protect our people” with Trump on Wednesday.

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The meeting, which reportedly lasted 50 minutes, was a second attempt after Zelenskyy failed to meet Trump earlier this month in Canada when the US president abruptly left a G7 summit as the Israel-Iran conflict raged, just days before the US militarily intervened with strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Speaking at news conference ending his participation at the NATO summit, Trump said it is possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine, adding that he plans to speak to Putin soon about ending the war.

Zelenskyy noted earlier that Moscow and Kyiv have not moved any closer to a ceasefire, saying, “The Russians once again openly and absolutely cynically declared they are ‘not in the mood’ for a ceasefire. Russia wants to wage war. This means the pressure the world is applying isn’t hurting them enough yet, or they are trying very hard to keep up appearances.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the security bloc’s “military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons” before the summit.

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On Putin, Rutte was blunt, “I don’t trust the guy,” he said, adding that the Russian leader wouldn’t be happy with the outcome of the NATO summit.

NATO endorsed a higher defence spending goal of five percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035 – a response to a demand by  Trump and to Europeans’ fears that Russia poses a growing threat to their security.

Putin to stay at home

In the meantime, Putin will not travel to next week’s BRICS summit in Brazil as an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) still hangs over him, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday.

The ICC issued the warrant in 2023, just over a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion and war against Ukraine. Putin is accused of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine to Russia, a war crime.

Moscow vehemently denies allegations of war crimes, and the Kremlin, which did not sign the ICC’s founding treaty, has dismissed the warrant as null and void. But weighing the risk that he might be arrested if he travels to another country that is a signatory to the ICC treaty, Putin has always erred on the side of caution, only travelling where he is safe from being apprehended.

Putin concluded an official visit to Mongolia last September undisturbed as his hosts ignored the arrest warrant, despite Mongolia being an  ICC member.

The Kremlin on Wednesday also said the US was not yet ready to dismantle obstacles to the work of their respective embassies, as efforts to normalise relations between the two have stalled after initial signs that Trump’s second term as US president would lead to a major thaw after tensions during the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

The war grinds on

In the latest developments on the ground in the war, Russian missile strikes on southeastern Ukraine killed 17 people in the city of Dnipro and injured more than 200, damaging dozens of buildings and infrastructure facilities on Tuesday.

Two people were killed in a Russian attack on the city of Samara.

Russia says it intercepted dozens of drones overnight across its territory, including the Voronezh region on the border of eastern Ukraine.

Russian forces say they captured the village of Dyliivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region,  a key battleground dating back to the first eruption of conflict in 2014.