European leaders, including those from Germany, France and the United Kingdom, will join Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on their meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, said on Sunday, seeking to reinforce their position while Trump pressures for a peace agreement.
Trump is trying to convince Zelenskiy to agree with an agreement after he met Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alaska. This Sunday, he promised “great progress over Russia” in a publication on social networks, without specifying what it could be.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had seen enough to justify the meeting with Zelenskiy and the Europeans on Monday (18), but added that both Russia and Ukraine need to make concessions.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British prime Minister Keir Stmerer were organizing a meeting on Sunday to reinforce Zelenskiy’s position, expecting robust safety guarantees for Ukraine, which would include a US role.
According to sources, the US and Russian leaders discussed, in their summit on Friday, proposals for Russia to resign to territories occupied in Ukraine in exchange for Kiev to give an east fortified land and freeze front lines elsewhere.
Due to its nominal value, some of Putin’s demands would be extremely difficult to accept by Ukraine, preparing the terrain for tense discussions about the end of the deadliest war in Europe in 80 years, which has dragged on for three and a half years and killed or wounded over 1 million people.
European allies are eager to help Zelenskiy avoid a repetition of the last meeting at the Oval Hall in February. The meeting was disastrous, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance giving a public scolding to the Ukrainian leader, accusing him of being ungrateful and disrespectful.
European Commission Chairman Von Der Leyen will also travel to Washington, as well as Finland president Alexander Stubb, whose access to Trump included golf matches this year, and Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is an admirer of many of Trump’s policies.
“It’s important that Washington is with us,” Zelenskiy said alongside Von der Leyen on a visit to Brussels, stating that the current front lines should be the basis for peace negotiations. “Putin doesn’t want to stop the killing, but must do so.”
Von der Leyen stated that Ukraine allies want robust security guarantees, without limits to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a table seat for Kiev to discuss their territory.
European powers want to help organize a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskiy to ensure that Ukraine has a table place to shape its future.
In an interview with CBS, Rubio said that both Ukraine and Russia will have to make concessions to reach a peace agreement and that safety guarantees for Ukraine will be discussed on Monday.
“I am not saying that we are on the verge of a peace agreement, but I am saying that we have seen movement, enough to justify a meeting with Zelenskiy and the Europeans, enough to devote even more time to it,” Rubio said.
He added, however, that the US may not be able to create a scenario to end the war.
In turn, Putin informed his nearby ally, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko about negotiations in Alaska, and also talked to Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Trump said on Friday that Ukraine should make an agreement to end the war because “Russia is a very large power, and it is not.”
Following the summit at Alaska, Trump called Zelenskiy and told him that the Kremlin chief had offered most of the front lines if Ukraine ceded Donetsk, the industrial region, which is one of Moscow’s main targets, said a source familiar with the subject.
Zelenskiy rejected the requirement. Russia already controls 20% of Ukraine, including about 75% of Donetsk province, where it first entered 2014.
Trump also said that he agrees with Putin that a peace agreement must be sought without the prior ceasefire required by Ukraine and his European allies. This was an inversion of his position before the summit, when he said he would not be satisfied unless a ceasefire was agreed.
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