President Donald Trump said Monday he’s nearing a deal with Ukraine and with Russia to end the war in Ukraine after a packed day of meetings at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Trump urged Europe to take a bigger role in funding, and Paris pushed for more assurances from Moscow.

The U.S. president pushed his desire for a deal to end the war, which struck its grim third anniversary Monday. He has said this will include an agreement with Ukraine for its critical minerals — a deal he hinted could be signed as soon as next week by Ukraine’s president.

“There's tremendous distrust on both sides,” Trump said. “That's why it's good that I'm coming in now. But I think it's to the very much benefit of Russia to make a deal and to go on with leading Russia in a very positive way. That's what you have to do. But I really believe that he wants to make a deal. I may be wrong, but I believe he wants to make a deal."

Macron was more circumspect, correcting Trump in the Oval Office when Trump said Europe supported Ukraine with a loan. Macron then warned against trusting Moscow.

"Let’s try to get something first which ... can be assessed, checked and verified," he said in English. “And let's be sure that we build sufficient guarantees in the short run. And this is where we are ready to be engaged. As for France, a lot of my European colleagues are ready to be engaged. But we do need this American backup, because this is part of the credibility of the security guarantees. And this is our collective deterrence capacity. And I have the feeling that the president has this capacity."

Analysts spoke of what the two leaders accomplished in their meetings.

“It looks like they agreed to have European peacekeepers enforce the peace between Russia and Ukraine,” said William Pomeranz, a senior scholar at the Wilson Center Kennan Institute. “There are a lot of other side issues that I haven't really been able to get a hold of, but yes, there are attempts to have a peace agreement and a use of peacekeepers to enforce the agreement between Russia and Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed hope and emphasized the importance of Washington’s role.

"Our teams are already working productively with the U.S. on an economic agreement, which we hope to sign in Washington,” he said in English. “And President Trump, we would really like to hear from you, because all our people, all our families, are very worried: ‘Will there be support from America? Will America be the leader of the free world?’ And I want to be very honest, very honest with you: For our people, for life in general, it is so important that American support, American assistance remains."

But other world leaders expressed concerns that Ukraine was kept out of high-level discussions in Saudi Arabia between Washington and Moscow. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently met with Zelenskyy in Ankara, also said Russia hasn’t always been part of the process.

"Apart from the Istanbul process, Russia has been excluded from the tables established so far, and therefore the desired result has not been achieved,” Erdogan said. “If results are to be obtained from the new process, Ukraine must definitely be included in the process, and this war must be ended through mutual negotiations.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that so far, talks have not been specific.

"During the phone conversation and at the meeting in Riyadh, we certainly touched on issues related to the Ukrainian crisis,” he said. “However, it was not discussed in essence. We only agreed that we would approach it. That being said, of course, we are not rejecting the participation of European countries."

Some analysts warn that Trump’s idea of a deal is not advantageous to Ukraine.

“We have to see this as a move by Donald Trump to undermine the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and in the worst case, as Trump advocating for Russia's position, which has been in the past that elections have to be part of a negotiation process in Ukraine, although it's an entirely Ukrainian domestic issue,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“So, it's not only a back and forth between Trump and Zelenskyy. We do see a broader realignment here of U.S. policy towards a normalization of relations with Russia, where Ukraine is perceived as a problem to this normalization,” she said.

Meanwhile in Europe, as Ukraine somberly marked Monday as the third anniversary of the war, Paris’ most famous icon, the Eiffel Tower, burned brightly in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag.