Sawt Falasteen - Sidelined Zelensky still gets Trump face time at NATO summit

"Couldn't have been nicer," Trump said after the 50-minute meeting, held behind closed doors.

No journalists were allowed into the room at the first encounter between the two men since they talked at the Vatican two months ago.

But they appeared to have avoided a repeat of the infamous Oval Office bust-up that soured relations between Kyiv and what had been its key backer.

"I had a good meeting with Zelensky," Trump said. "He's fighting a brave battle. It's a tough battle."

The positive mood music was about as good as Kyiv could have hoped, after NATO planners specifically sought to keep Zelensky at arm's length so as not to rile Trump.

The most Zelensky appeared to get was a vague promise from the US leader on Patriot air defence systems.

"We're going to see if we can make some available," Trump said of the missiles that Kyiv is desperately pleading for to shoot down Russian attacks.

"They're very hard to get," he added.

Trump said he would talk again soon to Russian President Vladimir Putin to push stalled peace efforts -- but there was no mention of possible sanctions on Moscow for stalling.

Zelensky hailed the "long and substantive" sit-down.

"I thank Mr. President, I thank the United States. We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace," he wrote on X.

"We spoke about how to protect our people. We appreciate the attention and the readiness to help bring peace closer."

- 'Among friends' -

As US support for Ukraine has dried up under Trump, focus at the summit in The Hague was firmly on pleasing the US leader with a pledge by allies to spend more on their defence.

And while he got his face time with Trump, playing second fiddle was still a downgrade for Zelensky from the central stage he occupied at NATO's last two summits.

Last year in Washington, the war-time leader was feted by US President Joe Biden and secured a pledge from NATO that Ukraine's push for membership was "irreversible".

This year -- despite NATO chief Mark Rutte insisting that remains the case -- the final declaration of the summit had no mention of Ukraine's bid to join.

Trump has essentially ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv and Zelensky, who has been vociferous on the subject before, was quite this time round.

Unlike at previous gatherings, there was no formal session involving Zelensky and NATO's 32 leaders at the slimmed-down summit.

With the US having gone from principal supporter to a bit player under Trump, it was left to Kyiv's European backers to offer Zelensky reassurance at the two-day event.

Both Rutte and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen stressed to Zelensky that he remained "among friends" when they met him.

But there were none of the bumper pledges of new weaponry to Kyiv that had been a hallmark of recent gatherings.

The best Europe managed was to get the US to sign off on allowing NATO countries to use some of the new defence spending they were pledging to go to Ukraine.

"Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours," the final statement said.

P.AbuBaker--SF-PST