ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington on Monday for a meeting with US President Donald Trump, to discuss a potential peace agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

The meeting will come just days after Trump met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, and European leaders are set to later join Zelensky and Trump’s meeting.

“I have already arrived in Washington, tomorrow I am meeting with President Trump,” the Ukrainian president said in a statement.

Zelensky expressed his support for an imminent peace deal between the two countries, stressing that this time “peace must be lasting.”

Ukraine’s president claimed that in the previous agreements “Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East—part of Donbas—and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack.”

In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump ruled out the chance of returning annexed Crimean lands to Ukraine. Adding that Ukraine is not to join North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), one of the main reason behind the initiation of the war, as Russia has for decades seen an expansion of the NATO further east as a threat to its security.

“No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!),” Trump said. “NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!”

Trump and Putin met in Alaska on Friday in order to discuss the possibility of a peace deal that would end the three-year-war. Trump later said that he looks for a lasting peace deal and not a temporary ceasefire. Both sides agreed significant steps were taken to reach that goal.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine in February 2022. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.