President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat down together at the G-7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France on June 16, marking a bilateral meeting that Trump described as “very good.” The pleasantries, however, came wrapped in visible frustration from the US president over a war that has now ground on for more than four years with no resolution in sight.
The meeting set the stage for a planned second one-on-one discussion later the same day, a signal that the conversation had enough momentum to warrant a follow-up.
What happened in France
The two leaders participated in a working session that lasted roughly 75 minutes, joined by other G-7 heads of state. The conversation centered almost entirely on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and what, if anything, could break the diplomatic stalemate.
Trump framed the war’s relevance to the US in starkly transactional terms, stating that the conflict has minimal direct impact on America aside from arms sales to Ukraine.
