Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky are meeting at a NATO summit in Turkey this summer. This is the latest in a series of direct talks between the two leaders over the past year about how to end the war in Ukraine.

They started meeting regularly last September in New York. Since then, they've talked multiple times—at Davos in January, in Berlin in December, and through various visits. Before this Turkey meeting, Zelensky also called six European leaders to prepare.

The biggest question these talks keep circling back to is territory. How much of Ukraine will Russia be allowed to keep? At their last meeting in Davos, Zelensky said openly that he and Trump hadn't settled this issue yet. Trump called the meeting "good" but said negotiations would be "an ongoing process." That phrase captures where things stand: some progress is happening, but nothing is finalized.

Ukraine's position on negotiations has shifted. For years during the war, Ukraine insisted it had to join NATO—the military alliance led by the United States. But in December talks in Berlin, Zelensky said Ukraine might drop that demand. Instead, he proposed getting security protections from other countries—deals that would keep Ukraine safe without joining NATO. This is a big change in what Ukraine is willing to accept.

Trump promised in August 2025 that the United States would help protect Ukraine in any peace deal. But nobody has said exactly what that protection would look like. It could be a direct agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine, a promise from multiple countries working together, or something else entirely. The Turkey meeting is where allied nations will probably push for clearer details.

NATO's leader, Secretary General Mark Rutte, has been working behind the scenes to connect all these different conversations. He visited Kyiv before meeting with NATO defense ministers, and he's given speeches outlining NATO's plans. His job has been to bring Trump's one-on-one talks with Zelensky into sync with the broader alliance talks that NATO's thirty-two member countries need to be part of.

What's actually happening is not one big negotiation heading toward a final answer, but several different conversations running at the same time. Trump is talking directly with Zelensky. NATO is having institutional talks. And Zelensky is reaching out separately to European leaders. None of these tracks has produced a public agreement about territory yet. But Ukraine's willingness to move on NATO membership does clear away one obstacle, even as the harder question—which lands Russia keeps—stays in dispute.

For NATO members watching this, the Turkey summit is less about making a final decision and more about taking stock. They want to see where the different negotiating tracks are headed and whether they match up. Russia has recently intensified its attacks on Ukraine, which adds pressure on both Trump and Zelensky to show they're making real progress. Whether they manage to move beyond saying "the process continues" is what allies will be paying close attention to.