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In today's issue:

▪ Zelensky, Europeans to meet with Trump

▪ Red states send National Guard to DC

▪ California preps for redistricting election

▪ Israel erupts in protests

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies will meet with President Trump at the White House this afternoon to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, just days after Trump met in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

Trump after meeting with Putin said what happens next in terms of securing a ceasefire that the Russian leader opposes will largely depend on Zelensky and Ukraine.

That worried leaders in Europe, who fear Trump is tilting toward Putin and could press for Zelensky and Ukraine to make more concessions to reach a broader peace agreement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will all be in Washington to make their collective case to Trump.

The idea is to give Zelensky backup, and make sure there is not a repeat of the disastrous February Oval Office meeting involving Zelensky, Trump and Vice President Vance that became an ugly shouting match.

Trump on Sunday evening previewed the stance he will be taking during the meetings, writing on Truth Social that Zelensky must agree to some of Russia’s conditions for the war to end — namely ceding Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and agreeing never to join NATO.

▪ The Hill: Follow along here for live updates from the meeting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoy to the region Steve Witkoff, the two U.S. officials in the room with Trump for the Putin meeting on Friday, on Sunday took to the airwaves to calm nerves.

The biggest news likely came from Witkoff.

He told CNN’s “State of the Union” that Putin had agreed to “robust” security guarantees for Ukraine, which he called a “game changer” in the negotiations.

The plan would essentially give Ukraine NATO-style security guarantees modeled after the alliance's Article 5, which decrees an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.

These guarantees would not come from NATO, Witkoff said Sunday, but from the U.S. and other European allies.

“Everything is going to be about what the Ukrainians can live with, but assuming they could, we were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” Witkoff said.

ELEVATED STAKES: The next steps in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine may hinge largely on today’s meeting.

Rubio said Sunday the sides have a long way to go to reach a peace deal, but that the U.S. was encouraged enough by what they heard Friday from the Russians to think it was worth moving forward. Separately, the White House is hoping for a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky later this week, The Washington Post reports.

The secretary of State said it was a “stupid media narrative” to think that European leaders were coming to Washington to prevent Trump from bullying Zelensky into a deal.

“We’ve been working with these people for weeks, for weeks on this stuff. They’re coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow,” a seemingly frustrated Rubio told CBS’s Margaret Brennan. “We invited them to come. We invited them to come. The president invited them to come.”

Rubio added Trump and the U.S. had made it clear to Russia that it would need to make concessions to Ukraine, and that any deal in the end will have to be agreed to by Kyiv.

Zelensky, who held a news conference with the European Commission president in Brussels on Sunday before traveling to Washington later in the day, said Kyiv could not enter into negotiations with Moscow “under the pressure of weapons” and insisted on a ceasefire.

Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said Trump’s “resolve to get a peace deal is vital” but signaled expectations for an agreement remain low, saying “the harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon."

"Even as delegations met, Russia launched new attacks on Ukraine," Kallas said. "Putin continues to drag out negotiations and hopes he gets away with it. He left Anchorage without making any commitments to end the killing.”

▪

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