Trump meets Zelenskyy in Davos, urges Putin to end Ukraine war

DAVOS, Switzerland — President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, later issuing a direct call to Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.

"The message to President Putin is that the war has to end," Trump told reporters following the hour-long meeting.

Trump highlighted the human cost of the fighting, noting that approximately 30,000 people — primarily soldiers — were killed last month alone. "We hope it ends because so many people are being killed," he said. "This is really a war that has to end."

The meeting comes amid a year-long push by the Trump administration to broker a peace deal. While no major breakthroughs were achieved Thursday, officials indicated that diplomatic efforts remain ongoing.

Zelenskyy said last week that Ukrainian and U.S. officials are working to finalize a peace proposal. The document is expected to focus on security guarantees and the economic reconstruction of Ukraine after the war.

Donald Trump’s pronouncements at Davos represent a recalibration of familiar rhetoric rather than a substantive policy breakthrough. Following a year of diplomatic efforts that yielded no clear progress, his public demand to "end the war" appears calculated to project political resolve to a domestic audience rather than to shift the tactical reality on the ground. By citing a stark figure of 30,000 casualties in a single month, Trump is attempting to leverage public shock to manufacture a sense of urgency and political pressure.

The summit highlights a shared strategic impasse. For Trump, the need for a tangible diplomatic achievement is paramount to securing a foreign policy legacy, particularly as his own self-imposed deadlines have lapsed without results. The current lack of momentum underscores the inherent limits of Washington’s influence over Moscow’s long-term strategic calculus.

For President Zelenskyy, the focus on drafting "post-war security guarantees" is a deliberate move to shift the conversation beyond a mere temporary ceasefire. Kyiv is signaling that any viable resolution must include a Western-backed security architecture robust enough to deter future aggression. Nonetheless, Ukraine remains precariously dependent on the political will and material backing of a U.S. administration whose strategic priorities remain subject to domestic volatility.

The decisive factor remains Vladimir Putin, who remains conspicuously absent from this public discourse. Trump’s rhetorical maneuvers are unlikely to shift the Kremlin’s position as long as Moscow believes its strategic objectives are more achievable through continued military attrition than through a negotiated settlement.

For the Vietnamese-American community—a group traditionally defined by its staunch anti-communist stance and support for a hawkish foreign policy—Donald Trump’s position has sparked a complex debate. On one hand, many in the community, from those in the nail salon industry to residents of Little Saigon, favor an end to the conflict to avoid being bogged down in a costly, long-term war in Europe. On the other hand, others view a rushed peace settlement as a dangerous concession to Russian military aggression. For a diaspora that has historically stood firm against authoritarian regimes, such a deal is often seen as a compromise of the core principles that define their political identity in the United States.