ACCOUNT: From Evian to Ankara, Zelensky's Second Chance With Trump

A thread that begins in the French Alps

There is a quiet geography to wartime diplomacy, and it sometimes runs through places we associate more with vacations than with negotiations over survival. Evian-les-Bains, on the French shore of Lake Geneva, hosted the G7 summit from June 15 to 17, 2026, and it was there, in a working session shared with the leaders of Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union, that Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump found themselves face to face for a session devoted to "building peace in Ukraine," according to the account published by Al Jazeera. The full plenary lasted barely an hour and fifteen minutes, but it was enough for Trump to tell reporters that Russia should reach a deal to end the war.

This was not a summit built around Ukraine. Washington's attention was consumed by the freshly signed Iran agreement and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a senior American official had even warned, before Trump arrived in Evian, that no formal bilateral meeting with Zelensky was planned, according to The Guardian. Even so, informal exchanges took place between Trump, Zelensky and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the margins of the talks — hallway diplomacy filling the gap left by an empty official schedule.

The thread that already linked the two meetings

What stands out, three weeks on, is how consistent the storyline turned out to be. French President Emmanuel Macron had used the summit to try to persuade Trump to keep backing Ukraine and to tighten pressure on Moscow, NPR reported. G7 leaders ultimately agreed, on June 16, to a political understanding aimed at increasing economic pressure on Russia — an agreement with no immediate concrete measures attached, but one that marked a shift for an American administration that had, only months earlier, eased certain sanctions on Vladimir Putin's oil revenues, according to Politico.

Zelensky, for his part, summed up the day's goal on X: strengthening Ukrainian air defense and pushing diplomatic efforts to force Russia to halt its aggression. "Peace is essential," he wrote. That line, almost banal in its obviousness, would resurface — three weeks later, thousands of kilometers away — at the heart of a second meeting, this time on Turkish soil.

What struck me re-reading the timeline is the contrast between how brief these meetings are and how much weight they carry. Seventy-five minutes in Evian to talk about a country's survival: that is the kind of disproportion that should remind us how fragile and rushed high-level diplomacy remains, appearances notwithstanding.

A G7 dominated by another file

To understand the Ankara meeting, one first has to understand why the Evian encounter was so brief and, on its face, so inconclusive. The G7 summit opened in the shadow of a deal just struck between Washington and Tehran, promising a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the start of sixty days of complex negotiations over Iran's highly enriched uranium, according to Al Jazeera. In that hierarchy of urgencies set by the White House, Ukraine found itself pushed down an agenda dominated by the Middle East.

The New York Times documented that dynamic with almost cruel precision: asked whether he would give "special attention" to Ukraine, Trump made clear he would not. Yet only moments earlier he had called his meeting with Zelensky "very good" and said he would meet him again in the future. That throwaway line would prove prophetic.

The symbolic weight of a shared room

Zelensky was not invited to a formal bilateral meeting with Trump in Evian, but his presence in the G7 working session, alongside the leaders of the West's major powers, sent a message diplomacy knows how to calibrate precisely: Ukraine remains, even on the margins of an agenda dominated by Iran, a player the West cannot ignore. Every minute spent in that room was worth more than its stopwatch count.

Ukraine's spokesman had, at the time, stressed the importance of air defense and diplomatic efforts. That same dual objective — weapons and negotiation — would go on to shape, three weeks later, the far more substantive bilateral meeting held on the margins of the NATO summit in Ankara.

There is a bitter but useful lesson in this episode: in today's international diplomacy, Ukraine must constantly fight to stay at the center of the attention of an ally whose agenda is saturated by other crises. This is not ingratitude on Washington's part — it is the reality of a superpower juggling several fires at once, and Kyiv knows that better than anyone.

A high-tension NATO summit

The NATO summit held in Ankara in early July 2026 opened in a tense climate. Trump had, from the moment he arrived, criticized certain European partners for resisting his plans regarding Greenland and for what he considered insufficient support for his military action against Iran, according to NPR. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had to spend considerable energy holding the summit together, going so far as to praise Trump for member countries' recent increases in defense spending.

It was against that backdrop, on July 8, that Trump held his bilateral meeting with Zelensky — this time formal, planned, and announced in advance by deputy press secretary Anna Kelly, according to the Straits Times. The contrast with Evian is striking: where the G7 offered only a group session, Ankara delivered a one-on-one explicitly devoted to finding a way out of the conflict.

A tone that surprised even the most cautious observers

The result surprised even reporters most accustomed to the tension between the two men. "We've actually developed a good relationship. It's hard to believe," Trump said at a joint press conference with Zelensky, according to NPR. He praised the Ukrainian president's work, calling him "incredible" and "very effective" at running the war. More concretely still: Trump announced that the United States would give Ukraine a license to produce its own Patriot missile defense systems — a request Kyiv had made for years and that Washington had until then refused.

"We're going to let them make the Patriots. We'll show them how to do it," he added, predicting Ukraine could "produce them pretty quickly." NATO leaders, meanwhile, pledged in their final declaration to provide Ukraine with $80 billion to meet its defense needs this year and next, explicitly citing "the long-term threat that Russia poses to Euro-Atlantic security."

That Trump would describe a relationship "hard to believe" with Zelensky says a lot about how far things have moved since the tense episodes of previous years. I remain cautious: warm words at a press conference only count if they translate into actual deliveries. But the Patriot license is a concrete act — and that is far rarer than a good photo.

A renewed appeal, unchanged opposition

Beyond the bilateral meeting with Trump, Zelensky used the Ankara summit to publicly renew Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, arguing that Ukrainian forces, hardened by more than four years of war, could only strengthen the Alliance's defensive capabilities, according to NPR. It is an argument Kyiv has repeated since the war began: Ukraine's combat experience, unmatched in Europe for decades, is a strategic asset rather than a burden.

Russia remains fiercely opposed to that prospect, and some NATO members themselves remain reluctant to consider membership while the conflict is unresolved. The Trump administration, for its part, has maintained the position that NATO membership cannot happen under current circumstances — a diplomatic red line that has not moved between Evian and Ankara.

What the persistence of the demand reveals

That Zelensky keeps raising this claim, summit after summit, despite repeated refusals, illustrates a strategy of sustained pressure rather than passive waiting. Every diplomatic occasion becomes a chance to remind Western allies that the question of Ukraine's integration into the Euro-Atlantic security architecture remains open, even if it stays, for now, out of immediate reach.

The contrast between this unmet demand and the concrete announcement of the Patriot license outlines the shape of a compromise diplomacy: Washington agrees to tangibly strengthen Ukrainian military capacity while refusing the strongest symbolic gesture — formal admission to the Alliance.

One could fault Zelensky for repeating a demand he knows is currently unrealistic. I see it differently: in a war where diplomatic endurance matters as much as military endurance, never stopping the claim is a refusal to let the aggressor dictate the long-term range of the possible.

A three-part diplomatic sequence

According to a U.S. official cited by the Straits Times, Trump planned to "follow up" with Vladimir Putin after his meeting with Zelensky in Ankara. That sequence — Kyiv first, then Moscow — repeats a pattern already seen after the G7: Trump had spoken separately with Zelensky and Putin even before the Evian summit, according to the New York Times. Kremlin diplomatic adviser Yuri Ushakov had confirmed at the time that Trump reaffirmed, in a call with Putin, his "willingness to help achieve a rapid end to hostilities."

This shuttle diplomacy, with Washington positioning itself as go-between for two warring capitals, carries a structural risk well identified by observers: it can create the impression of equidistance between aggressor and victim, even as Ukraine has endured an unprovoked invasion for more than four years.

The urgency voiced by Washington

A senior U.S. official, cited anonymously by the Straits Times, said Trump felt a "sense of urgency" to end the war and would speak with Zelensky about how to get there. Zelensky, for his part, said there was now "a real prospect of ending this war," a cautious but notable statement from a leader usually measured in his public remarks about the chances of quick peace.

This rhetorical convergence — urgency on the American side, real prospect on the Ukrainian side — guarantees nothing on the ground, where front lines have remained frozen for months according to several assessments of the military situation. But it does point to a perceptible shift in diplomatic tone between the two summits.

I instinctively distrust phrases like "urgency" and "real prospect" when they come from diplomatic mouths accustomed to managing expectations rather than meeting them. But I also note that concrete facts — the Patriot license, the promised $80 billion — carry more weight than any statement of intent.

Macron and the role of constant insistence

The role played by Emmanuel Macron in Evian deserves to be highlighted: it was he who pushed for Trump to keep backing Ukraine and to intensify pressure on Russia, according to NPR. This diplomacy of European insistence, exercised behind the scenes rather than from a public podium, likely helped keep Ukraine in the field of vision of an American administration tempted to focus exclusively on the Middle East.

The political agreement reached by G7 leaders on June 16, aimed at increasing economic pressure on Russia, though lacking immediate operational detail according to Politico, marks a notable reversal for an American administration that had previously eased certain sanctions on Russian oil revenues. That kind of shift does not happen by chance: it results from constant diplomatic work by Ukraine's European allies.

NATO, between displayed unity and internal friction

The Ankara summit also exposed structural tensions within the Atlantic Alliance. Mark Rutte had to manage Trump's criticism of certain allies deemed insufficiently committed, while praising the defense-spending increases secured from member countries — a way of turning friction into points of convergence to preserve the summit's outward unity.

This dynamic, where Western unity is built as much through skillful ego management as through strategic convergence, illustrates the structural fragility of the coalition backing Ukraine. Every summit is a negotiation on several levels: among allies first, before the Russia question is even addressed.

We often forget that supporting Ukraine is not just about weapons deliveries: it is also delicate diplomatic craftsmanship to keep thirteen different governments aligned on the same line against a sometimes unpredictable American ally. Macron and Rutte do that thankless work, far from the cameras, and it matters just as much as the promised Patriots.

A war entering its fifth year

The Washington Times notes it soberly: Trump's meeting with Zelensky in Ankara comes as Russia's war against Ukraine now enters its fifth year. That duration alone says something about the failure of earlier attempts at a quick resolution, and about the tenacity of a Ukrainian resistance few observers would have predicted in February 2022.

Between Evian and Ankara, the diplomatic narrative evolved: from a brief, almost secondary meeting swallowed by the Iran agenda, to a substantive bilateral encounter accompanied by concrete announcements. That shift owes nothing to chance — it reflects continuous work, carried out on several diplomatic fronts at once, to keep American attention on Ukraine.

The limits of a still-fragile optimism

It would nonetheless be unwise to give in to excessive optimism. The NATO summit itself revealed deep tensions over sharing the financial and military burden, and Trump kept issuing barely veiled threats toward certain European allies. The $80 billion pledge and the Patriot license represent tangible advances, but they do not replace a negotiated solution ending the fighting on the ground.

Russia, for its part, has shown no sign of softening its war aims, and Putin continues to refuse any prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership. The road between goodwill statements and lasting peace remains long, strewn with obstacles that neither Evian nor Ankara fully cleared.

I refuse to give in to the vertigo of easy diplomatic optimism. A good press conference does not make peace. But I equally refuse the cynicism of ignoring that a Patriot manufacturing license and an $80 billion pledge represent, in concrete terms, more real support than many prior summits delivered.

Bombardments that keep pace with every summit

While delegations talked in Evian and then in Ankara, the war itself never paused. Russian attacks on Kharkiv, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, regularly reported by Ukrainian media, kept shaping the daily lives of Ukrainian civilians while their leaders negotiated thousands of kilometers away. This simultaneity — diplomatic summits on one side, bombardments on the other — is never mentioned in official communiqués, but it quietly shapes every exchange between Kyiv and its Western partners.

It is in that context that Zelensky's calls to intensify air defense take on their full meaning. This is not an abstract request made for diplomatic form: it is an immediate operational necessity, dictated by strikes that continue to target Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure, regardless of the international summit calendar.

The gap between diplomatic time and wartime

There is a structural gap between the pace of international negotiations — measured in summits, communiqués, press conferences — and the pace of the war itself, measured in daily strikes and human losses. That gap partly explains the impatience noticeable in Zelensky's tone during his public remarks: every additional week of negotiation is also an additional week of bombardment for Ukrainian populations.

Western allies, aware of this gap, have tried to bridge it with concrete announcements such as the Patriot manufacturing license and the promised $80 billion in financing. But none of these measures produces an immediate effect on the ground: their implementation will take months, if not years, while the war continues to unfold in real time.

This may be the most disturbing truth of this diplomatic sequence: while cameras capture handshakes and press-conference smiles, Ukrainian cities keep burning. The two timelines coexist without ever truly meeting, and it falls to Ukrainian civilians to live inside that gap.

From a Franco-Swiss lake to the Turkish capital

What links Evian to Ankara is less geography than the persistence of a file that refuses to vanish from the Western agenda, despite attempts to push it behind Iran or other American priorities. Zelensky has long understood that every international summit is a chance to remind his allies that the war continues, that Ukrainian cities are still being bombed, and that diplomatic endurance must match military endurance.

Trump, for his part, appears to have gradually reassessed his relationship with the Ukrainian president, moving from a hurried group session in Evian to a substantive one-on-one in Ankara, accompanied by concrete announcements on Patriot systems and defense financing. This is not peace yet. It is, at minimum, proof that diplomacy keeps producing tangible results, however slow, however imperfect.

What history will remember of these two meetings

History may judge these two summits as minor steps in a conflict that will still drag on. But for now, they represent the visible trace of constant diplomatic work, carried out by Kyiv and its European allies, to keep Ukraine at the center of American attention. Every meeting, however brief, shapes what comes next in a war whose outcome remains, to this day, entirely open.

I end this account with a simple conviction: the diplomacy that matters is never the one seen on television, but the one that translates into delivered defense systems and disbursed budgets. From Evian to Ankara, Ukraine has gained diplomatic ground. What remains is turning that ground into concrete victories on the battlefield.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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