Analysis: Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump could be much worse than February’s Oval Office showdown

By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor

This meeting has the potential to be much worse than last time. 

We now have an American president who has fallen into line with Vladimir Putin on a number of key demands. 

He no longer sees an immediate ceasefire as important like Putin. 

He and his aides say the Russians can be trusted despite all the contrary evidence. 

And he is asking the impossible from Zelenskyy, give up land your troops have been dying to defend for 11 years. 

That shows a stunning ignorance of some fundamental truths about this conflict, that the Russians cant be trusted and that Ukrainians will not surrender land that has not been captured yet. 

There is now a chasm opening up in the transatlantic alliance. 

The Europeans and Zelenskyy see one silver lining. The Americans are sounding more willing to be part of any security guarantees that could follow a peace deal, but they are speaking in the most nebulous of terms. 

They will try and pull Trump back to their side of the argument but know that at every stage he seems to revert back to positions more sympathetic to Putin. 

If another fiasco can’t be avoided, and it is a big if, this will probably end in promises to have more meetings and for diplomacy to continue while the war grinds on.

It means that many more will die as a baby and teenager did when Putin’s drones hit a block of flats in Kharkiv overnight on the eve of this summit.