Donald Trump’s explosive showdown with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday threatened to derail all progress towards a vital minerals deal viewed as a potential way out of the three-year conflict.

For Zelensky, the lingering issue is the lack of security guarantees that Ukraine and its European allies say are essential to ensuring Russia does not break the terms of a possible peace deal.

For Trump, Kyiv is not in a position to negotiate and should accept the terms of the deal on the table – a commitment to long-term investment in Ukraine by which the U.S. will have the right to extract rare natural resources.

Europe tried desperately to mediate with crisis talks in London on Sunday, allies joining together to help find a road back to diplomacy by assuring Ukraine of Europe’s commitment to its security and placating American grievances.

But many questions remain around the future shape of a ceasefire deal, the promise of peace and the threat posed to Ukraine and wider Europe by a resurgent Russia. 

MailOnline addresses the key issues ahead of Zelensky’s anticipated return to the White House.

Will Zelensky quit after White House row? 

Volodymyr Zelensky suggested he was willing to step down as president if it ensured a lasting peace in Ukraine on February 23.

When pressed at a news conference, he said he was willing to give up the role in exchange for NATO membership for his country.

But Trump has already hinted that NATO membership is off the table for Ukraine, rendering the offer toothless. 

‘NATO – you can forget about,’ he said. ‘I think that’s probably the reason the whole thing started.’ 

Still, Republicans like US senator Lindsay Graham have continued to pile pressure on Zelensky to step down following the White House bust-up.

But Zelensky has made it clear he only answers to his people. 

‘I can give [Lindsay Graham] citizenship of Ukraine and he will become a citizen of our country,’ he told Sky News.

‘And then his voice will start to gain weight, and I will hear him as a citizen of Ukraine on the topic of who must be the president. 

‘The president of Ukraine will have to be chosen not in Lindsay Graham’s home but in Ukraine.’

Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed Graham’s comment, telling NBC News on Sunday that Zelensky ‘needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country’.

Zelensky reiterated his offer to step down in exchange for NATO membership for Ukraine on Sunday, but warned: ‘If they replace me, given what is going on, given the support, simply replacing me will not be simple.’

‘It’s not enough to just hold an election,’ he said. ‘You need to also not let me run. This will be a bit more difficult. Looks like you will have to negotiate with me. And I said that I am exchanging for NATO. Then I fulfilled my mission.’

Can Ukraine survive without U.S. support?

Zelensky, while vying for more U.S. support, has suggested that Ukraine could last around six months without Washington’s backing.

With the current aid arrangement, the ISW estimates it would take Russian forces more than 83 years to capture the remaining 80% of the country, assuming they can sustain massive personnel losses indefinitely.

Allied support has made a huge difference, then.

But the U.S. is not responsible for all aid. While it is the largest single donor, more than 50 allies and partner countries have provided security assurances to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion.

As of December 31, 2024, Europe had contributed 132.3bn euros in allocated aid, versus 114.2bn given by the U.S. 

Europe’s contributions are also expected to keep flowing; 115.1bn remained to be allocated from Europe, with just 4.84bn from the U.S.

The key difference is in what the U.S. is able to supply. Britain has been able to match the U.S. with long-range missiles, able to hit deep into Russian territory. And the Challenger 2 tank has been one of the most reliable fixtures on the battlefield.

But American air defences – and their sheer volume – are critical to fending off Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and disrupting utilities.

Long range ATACMS missiles can also ‘make a significant difference in the war’, according to Olga Tokariuk, Academy Associate, Ukraine Forum, Russia and Eurasia Programme. 

‘These will improve Ukraine’s capability to threaten and destroy Russian military targets in occupied Crimea, forcing Russia to withdraw its equipment and enhancing Black Sea security,’ she wrote last year. 

Dr Kenton White told MailOnline: ‘Ukraine would struggle without US support as the US has the greater capacity for the manufacture and supply of weapons, ammunition and all of the supporting military equipment and infrastructure required to prosecute a modern war.

‘A US backstop is urgent because Western Europe has been complacent about its own defence, and its ability to produce the military infrastructure necessary for fighting a war. 

‘Even within NATO there is no flexibility for anything other than short term, low intensity conflicts. NATO is not “war-ready” at all.’

Europe may also now look to harness some 210bn euros in frozen Russian assets to continue the flow of aid – equivalent to nearly the total of all aid allocated so far by Europe and the U.S. since January 2022. 

Could Europe defend itself without U.S. support if Russia attacked? 

The U.S. has maintained a significant presence in Europe since the end of World War II, and helped create NATO in 1949 to help challenge the perceived threat from the USSR.

As of last year, the U.S. had around 65,000 active-duty soldiers stationed permanently across the continent. The FT last month cited 90,000 currently stationed in Europe.

A withdrawal of troops would significantly hamper Europe’s ability to mobilise trained troops with modern and functional weaponry.

Without the U.S., the militaries of just Turkey, Poland, France and the UK could in theory bring together nearly 950,000 troops – 300,000 more than Napoleon took to Moscow in 1812. 

But while NATO’s overall troop numbers far exceed that of Russia, it is highly unlikely that all members of the alliance would be willing to send any great quantity of soldiers into battle unless a NATO country itself is attacked directly by Moscow.

As a result, a war between Europe and Russia could look a lot more balanced without U.S. backing, devolving into a long and grinding war of attrition.

Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank, the head of NATO’s logistics command, said last year that, unlike allies’ experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, an all-out war with Russia would likely see NATO incur heavy losses across a huge battlefield.

Many European nations are therefore working to scale up their military industries as politicians sound the alarm over their respective nations’ state of readiness for war.

But at present just 23 of 32 NATO countries are meeting the agreed-upon target of spending at least 2% of their GDP on defence.

Battle-ready Russia has meanwhile pushed its spending up to an equivalent 6.7%.

The loss of American defence systems and stockpiles would also hamper Europe if Trump withdrew the tens of thousands of U.S. troops currently stationed in Europe.

Europe would still have an independent nuclear deterrent without the U.S. Macron has signalled he is ready to extend France’s nuclear deterrent to help protect Europe.

But again, experts warn Europe alone would need far more to be able to seriously deter Putin.

Maximilian Terhalle, a former Senior Adviser for strategic affairs to Britain’s Ministry of Defence and Visiting Professor at the Grand Strategy Programme of King’s College London told The Telegraph: ‘We need to be on par with Russia’s 1,550 strategic warheads.

‘Otherwise we will not strategically influence what is going on in Putin’s mind, which is critical for deterrence.’ 

Russian losses would also have to be taken into account after three years of bloody war.

The most conservative estimates suggest a minimum of 700,000 Russians have been killed or injured since February 2022, with that figure increasing as high as 1.2 million, according to some analyses. 

More than 20,000 Russian tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery batteries and mobile launchers have also been reduced to scrap since February 2024, along with hundreds of military aircraft shot down by Ukrainian defences.

But Russia was still seeking to increase the number of its active service personnel to 1,500,000 in September last year, making it the second largest in the world after China’s. The overall size would be 2,380,000. 

Will Trump really withdraw all U.S. military aid to Ukraine?

Trump said in December that he was open to the idea of reducing aid to Ukraine. 

The president is now expected to meet with his senior advisors on Monday, according to the New York Times, where he will consider the future of Ukraine aid, even as European countries are discussing how to increase their support for Ukraine. 

Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz warned in an interview on Fox News Monday morning that the days of unlimited support from America to Ukraine were over.

‘The American people’s patience is not unlimited, their wallets are not unlimited and our stockpiles and munitions are not unlimited,’ he said. ‘The time to talk is now.’

Congress passed the last aid package to Ukraine in April 2024, under the Biden administration, and Trump is ‘unlikely’ to request more in light of the showdown at the White House, the American Center for Strategic & International Studies assessed.

At present, there is still aid earmarked for Ukraine, allocated under the last administration and not yet delivered.

‘Even when the final equipment provided under [the Presidential Drawdown Authority] is delivered (around August 2025), USAI contracts will provide a steady flow of weapons through 2025 and beyond,’ the American Center for Strategic & International Studies notes.

Vitally, around a dozen HIMARS rocket launchers and a dozen National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) were contracted in 2022 and should ‘soon appear on the battlefield’. 

But now, the U.S. could even target aid already signed off by the last administration and not yet delivered, according a Trump administration official, speaking in February. 

A challenge facing the American Department of Defence is that it has now run out of funding to replace its own equipment stockpiles, and has been unwilling in the past to release equipment when there is no guarantee of its replacement, CSIS notes.

A critical mineral deal could still hold the key. Zelensky had suggested he might grant access to the country’s rare minerals in return for continued aid.

But Trump’s comments, and a draft version of the deal, suggest he is more focused on being compensated for aid already offered by the Biden administration. 

Would Putin invade other European countries if America pulls out of NATO? 

Ahead of his meeting with Trump on Friday, Zelensky said that he had provided the US President with a list of 25 times Russia had violated ceasefires since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Ukraine has warned that a hasty ceasefire deal without strong security guarantees would give Russia time to recoup its strength before potentially reopening the conflict later on.

A lack of security guarantees may also deter international investment in Ukraine, leaving the country struggling to rebuild its economy as Russia is welcomed back into international markets. 

This could prime Russia for another invasion.

Denmark’s intelligence service (FE) warned in February that Russia could be ready for a major war in Europe within just five years, and expects to get away with attacking NATO with few consequences.

‘We see an increased willingness on the Russian side to challenge NATO, and we see an American administration that is focused on ending the fighting in Ukraine,’ intelligence chief Anja Dalsgaard Nielsen told the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Last year, Danish intelligence concluded that Russia could attack a NATO country within three to five years and ‘test’ the bloc’s Article 5 commitment of mutual defence. 

Latvia’s intelligence agency, the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), also reported in February that ‘Russian intelligence and security services are currently developing their capabilities to organize sabotage in Europe’ in preparation ‘for a possible military confrontation with NATO in the long term’. 

Should a peace deal play out to ‘freeze’ the conflict in Ukraine along existing battle lines, Moscow ‘would be able to increase its military presence next to NATO’s north-eastern flank, including the Baltics within the next five years’, the report claims.

German intelligence warned in a classified report last year that Putin could be ready to launch a war against NATO members as early as 2026.

Dr Kenton White, politics and international relations expert at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: ‘Russia is likely to reinvade Ukraine, and possibly the Baltic states, without security guarantees from the West.’

Can Zelensky and Trump salvage relations after White House row?

According to Zelensky: yes.

The Ukrainian president said on Sunday that he believed he could still salvage his relationship Trump after their explosive meeting in the Oval Office, but that talks needed to continue behind closed doors.

Zelenskiy reiterated that Ukraine would not concede any territory to Russia as part of a peace deal. 

He said he was still willing to sign a minerals deal with the U.S. and described a discussion on Sunday with European leaders to send a draft peace plan to the U.S. as a key development.

Trump will also still be eyeing the critical minerals deal.

He said after the meeting that Zelensky could come back when he’s ‘ready for peace’.

European allies have tried to smooth things over. Keir Starmer has also backed a U.S. ‘backstop’ and stressed the importance of a sustainable peace deal.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian premier, said as she arrived in London on Sunday that she believed that she and Starmer could help build ‘bridges’ with the U.S.