Trump Administration Live Updates: U.S. Envoys Meet Zelensky, Who Offers a Compromise on Security

He reiterated before the meeting that Ukraine would give up on its hopes to join NATO, at least for now, as long as it won strong security guarantees from the United States to prevent Russia from again invading if a peace deal was reached. But Mr. Zelensky also repeated that Ukraine did not want to cede territory that it now controls, as the Trump administration has suggested.

Mr. Zelensky told reporters that he expected to receive details on proposed American security guarantees.

The meeting lasted more than five hours, and it is to continue on Monday, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office. It said he would comment on the results of the meetings on Monday.

The Ukrainian president met with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law. They have shuttled between talks with Ukrainian officials, European leaders and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the past three weeks to try to end the war launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“In my view, the most important thing is that the plan be as fair as possible — first and foremost for Ukraine, because it was Russia that started this war,” Mr. Zelensky told reporters before his meetings. “And above all, it must be workable. The plan truly should not be just a piece of paper, but a meaningful step toward ending the war.”

The meeting comes ahead of a week of intense diplomacy. On Monday, Mr. Zelensky is expected to meet with top European leaders and join Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany at the German-Ukrainian Business Forum. Later in the week, members of the European Union are expected to vote on whether to use part of the €210 billion in frozen Russian assets held in Europe, about $245 billion, as a loan to Ukraine in 2026 and 2027.

There are major gaps between the latest American and Ukrainian plans to try to end the war. They are the same gaps that have been there all year, leaving the United States and Ukraine far from a compromise.

The American plan pushes Ukraine to agree to trade land in eastern Ukraine for peace, including land it still controls in the eastern region of Donetsk, and to renounce its hopes to join NATO, the military and political alliance considered the bedrock of security linking Europe and North America. The Americans want to create a “free economic zone” in that area that would function as a kind of buffer zone between Ukrainian territory and the area of Ukraine controlled by Russia, Mr. Zelensky said last week.

On Wednesday night, Ukraine submitted its own version of a peace plan to the United States that would not cede any land that it currently controls. It also removed the American measure prohibiting Ukraine from ever joining NATO. And the plan specified that any decision to give up Ukrainian territory would need to be put to a vote in Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky told reporters Sunday before the meeting that he had not yet heard back from the American representatives on the Ukrainian version. He also indicated that Ukraine was open to reaching a cease-fire along the current front line.

“A fair and viable option is, ‘We stand where we stand,’” Mr. Zelensky said.

But Mr. Zelensky also voiced skepticism about a “free economic zone.” Ukrainian troops would be forced to withdraw from that zone, which includes important cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. The Ukrainian president questioned why Russian troops would not have to withdraw from some areas that they hold.

“So this is a question that remains unanswered for now,” Mr. Zelensky said. “But it is extremely sensitive and very heated.”

Still, he also said that Ukraine was no longer insisting on NATO membership, which would require all NATO members to defend Ukraine if Russia invaded in the future. Ukraine had been on track for eventual NATO membership until the election of Mr. Trump, although some European members had also balked at the idea. While Mr. Zelensky has admitted in the past that NATO membership was unlikely unless Mr. Trump agreed, he expanded on his earlier comments on Sunday.

“Primarily, from the very beginning, Ukraine’s conditions — or perhaps more accurately, our ambition — was NATO membership,” Mr. Zelensky said. “And that would have provided real security guarantees.”

Late Sunday afternoon, Mr. Zelensky’s office posted photos and videos of him greeting Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff. “Good to see you,” Mr. Zelensky told them, in the videos. In the photos, Mr. Zelensky hugged Mr. Witkoff and shook his hand, and shook the hand of Mr. Kushner, and the Ukrainians sat across from the Americans along a long oval table.

There is no indication yet that Mr. Putin is willing to agree to any plan to end the war. Mr. Putin says he is winning. And even as the peace talks have progressed, Russia has continued to attack Ukraine’s power grid and slowly grind forward along the front line in the country’s east.

But Mr. Zelensky is also trying to maintain the support of Mr. Trump, who has reversed decades of American foreign policy toward Russia and Europe since taking office and has at times echoed Russian talking points as he has tried to end the war.

On Sunday, Mr. Zelensky said that he believed that the United States could make Mr. Putin accept a deal.

“If the United States truly wants to end this war — as they are demonstrating today at a high level — I believe the Russians will have to make compromises,” he said.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn, Maria Varenikova and Christopher F. Schuetze contributed reporting.

The decision by the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit effectively blocked the Trump administration from using the remaining 100 or so National Guard troops in California — at least, for the moment.

But the appellate judges temporarily blocked a key part of the order by District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer that would have forced the Trump administration to return control of the troops to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ordinarily commands them.

California officials celebrated the move as a partial victory in a battle that has dragged on for months.

“The Ninth Circuit’s decision means that, come Monday, there will be no National Guard troops deployed in California. Let me repeat: For the first time in six months, there will be no military deployed on the streets of Los Angeles,” the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said in a statement.

“California did not ask to be a testing ground for the president’s militarized vision of America,” he added. “There is no crisis to justify the National Guard’s continued presence, and we look forward to continuing to prove that in court.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At the deployment’s high point in June, about 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines were commandeered by the Trump administration and dispatched to Los Angeles. State and local officials objected strenuously to the move, calling it an inflammatory overreaction to scattered demonstrations that were being ably handled by local and state law enforcement agencies.

Mr. Newsom sued over the initial deployment, but the administration argued that the troops were responding to an emergency and were needed to protect federal agents and property. In June, the Ninth Circuit ruled that conditions in Los Angeles were sufficient for Mr. Trump to take control of the state’s National Guard and direct troops to provide protection during the enforcement of immigration laws.

The administration began gradually drawing down the number of federalized troops in July as public condemnation grew and protests abated. As of last month, about 300 California National Guard members remained under the president’s command, and most were in the process of being released to their usual duties, which generally involve part-time service controlled by the state.

State officials said on Friday that the California deployment consisted of about 100 troops on federal orders that were scheduled to last into February. Last week, Judge Breyer ruled that any emergency the president might have cited as justification for the deployment had long since ended, and that all remaining troops should be released from federal orders and returned to the governor’s command.

Lawyers for the Trump administration argued that the law required an emergency only at the time the president decided to federalize National Guard troops, after which he could extend the deployment as long as he deemed necessary. They also said that troops were still needed to protect federal workers from threats stemming from immigration raids that have been intensely unpopular in immigrant-heavy Southern California.

The soldiers were supporting counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State group in Palmyra, a city in central Syria, when they came under fire from a lone gunman, according to American officials. Syrian security forces subsequently killed the gunman, American and Syrian officials said.

Three American military personnel and two members of Syrian security forces were also wounded in the attack, according to American officials and Syrian state media. In the aftermath, American helicopters were deployed to evacuate the wounded to the al-Tanf U.S. base in southeastern Syria, Syrian state media said.

Though the United States deployment in the Middle East is a fraction of what it once was, the assault was a stark reminder of the danger in the region and the quandary of whether to keep American forces there.

It also highlighted the challenges for the nascent Syrian government, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, as it steers a deeply fractured country emerging from nearly 14 years of civil war.

Since his rebel coalition toppled the government of Mr. al-Assad, Mr. al-Sharaa has had to contend with threats from the Islamic State and various other armed groups, while simultaneously building a new national military.

The attack also comes months after the United States began to draw down its military presence in Syria, from around 2,000 American troops in Syria at the start of the year to around 1,000 today, according to a Pentagon official.

It remains unclear whether the lethal attack on American soldiers on Saturday will affect that strategy.

The decision to draw down forces reflected the shifting security environment in Syria after Mr. al-Assad’s government collapsed. While Islamic State cells have continued to carry out attacks in Syria, Mr. al-Assad’s departure diminished the threats posed by the Iranian-backed militias and Russian troops who had supported him.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forcefully condemned the attack, writing in a post on X, “if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, though initial assessments suggest that it was likely carried out by the Islamic State, according to a Pentagon official.

Representative Rick Crawford, Republican of Arkansas and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said: “This is a glaring reminder that the radical Islamic threat against the U.S. and our service members abroad is still very real, and we must continue to treat ISIS, and any other radical terror group, like the deadly threat they are.”

The attack on Saturday unfolded outside a building in Palmyra where Syrian Interior Ministry officials from the capital, Damascus, were meeting with their counterparts in the city, according to a U.S. official.

The American soldiers and their interpreter were providing security outside when a lone gunman opened fire on them from a nearby building with what appeared to be a machine gun, the official said. Syrian security forces then opened fire and killed the gunman, according to the American official and Syrian officials.

The American soldiers killed were part of an Iowa National Guard contingent assigned to the Syria mission, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa said.

A spokesman for the Syrian Interior Ministry, Noureddine al-Baba, said in a statement that the Syrian government had warned American counterparts about the possibility of attacks by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, on their forces.

“The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings about the possibility of an ISIS breach into account,” Mr. al-Baba said.

Since 2014, American forces have been deployed in Syria across various U.S. bases. For years, their main objectives have included combating the Islamic State, guarding strategic areas like oil fields and curbing Iranian influence.

American forces have also partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia that controls much of the nation’s northeast, to provide training and equipment, and maintain pressure on the Islamic State. The group seized control of Palmyra in 2015, destroying invaluable archaeological sites and carrying out brutal attacks on civilians and military personnel.

After suffering stinging defeats in 2017, the Islamic State’s capabilities in Syria were greatly diminished. Remnants of the group remained at large in the remote desert of eastern Syria.

But the group has continued to carry out small-scale attacks since Mr. al-Assad’s departure, primarily targeting soldiers from Mr. al-Sharaa’s government. There are also growing concerns about the possibility of the group breaking thousands of its hardened militants out of detention, which could further destabilize the region.

Last month, after meeting with Mr. Trump in the White House, Mr. al-Sharaa signed a declaration of political cooperation with the U.S.-led coalition that combats the Islamic State in Syria.

The move reflected both Mr. al-Sharaa’s eagerness to establish stronger ties with the United States and the volatility his country continues to face, as it grapples with sectarian violence, deep humanitarian crises and the formidable challenge of rebuilding its military and security forces.

The attack on Saturday “comes at a critical juncture in the formation of U.S.-Syria bilateral security ties, which behind the scenes have been coming on leaps and bounds in the last six months,” said Dr. Charles Lister, the director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute.

On Saturday evening, the situation in Palmyra remained fraught. Throughout the afternoon, the sounds of gunfire and planes were heard across the city and many roads remained closed, residents said.

“The situation in Palmyra is tense,” Mohammed Al-Fadhil, a human-rights activist in Palmyra, said in a phone interview. “Civilians are living in fear.”

Muhammad Haj Kadour contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria; Hussam Hammoud from Aleppo, Syria; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Mitch Smith from Chicago.