Russia has yet again ignored Donald Trump’s bid to hold a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky and said attempts to resolve security issues for Kyiv without Moscow’s participation was a “road to nowhere”.

The Ukrainian leader returned with a U.S. commitment to participate in security guarantees for Kyiv in a postwar settlement.

President Donald Trump made some false claims to the press while meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday – including a long-debunked claim that the US has given Ukraine more than $300 billion in wartime aid.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin could meet for the first time in six years in the hope of ending the Ukraine war - but it remains unclear just where the two leaders will come face-to-face. The White House is in the process of selecting a location for the potential meeting, that has been championed by the US president Donald Trump.

Moscow has resisted a Putin-Zelensky summit and security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump’s claims that the Kremlin’s position has changed has left analysts puzzled.

Zaluzhnyi is Ukraine's most trusted public figure with recent polling finding 73 per cent of Ukrainians trust him compared with 67 per cent for Zelensky. The Ukrainian Embassy was contacted for comment.

Ukrainian analysts watching their president’s return to the White House were braced for a “nightmare.” They took cautious encouragement from what they saw instead.

If anyone could convince him to change his look, it would be me,” said Viktor Anisimov, who was working to transform the Ukrainian president’s look even before it was questioned at a White House meeting.