European leaders have welcomed plans by United States President Donald Trump to hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on ending the war in Ukraine, but called for continued support for Kyiv and pressure on Moscow to achieve a just and lasting peace.
The statement by France, Italy, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and the European Commission late on Saturday came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted that Kyiv will not surrender land to Russia to buy peace.
Trump, who has promised to end the three-year war, plans to meet Putin in Alaska on Friday, saying the parties were close to a deal that could resolve the conflict.
Details of a potential agreement have not been announced, but Trump said it would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both”. It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory, an outcome Zelenskyy and his European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression.
The European leaders, in their joint statement, stressed their belief that the only approach to end the war successfully required active diplomacy, support for Ukraine, as well as pressure on Russia.
They also said any diplomatic solution to the war must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s security interests.
“We agree that these vital interests include the need for robust and credible security guarantees that enable Ukraine to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” they said, adding that “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.”
The leaders said they were ready to help diplomatically and promised to maintain their “substantial military and financial support for Ukraine”.
“We underline our unwavering commitment to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” they said, adding: “We continue to stand firmly alongside Ukraine.”
Chevening talks
The statement came after US Vice President JD Vance met British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and representatives of Ukraine and European allies on Saturday at Chevening House, a country mansion southeast of London, to discuss Trump’s push for peace.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who took part in the talks with European leaders and US officials, said Ukraine was grateful for their constructive approach.
“A ceasefire is necessary – but the front line is not a border,” Yermak said on X, reiterating Kyiv’s position that it will reject any territorial concessions to Russia.
Yermak also thanked Vance for “respecting all points of view” and his efforts towards a “reliable peace”.
The Reuters news agency, quoting a European official, said European representatives had put forward a counterproposal, while the Wall Street Journal said the document included demands that a ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken. According to the Journal, the document also stated that any territorial exchange must be reciprocal, with firm security guarantees.
“You can’t start a process by ceding territory in the middle of fighting,” the newspaper quoted a European negotiator as saying.
There was no immediate comment from the White House on the European counterproposal.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke earlier in the day and promised to find a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, pledging “unwavering support” for Zelenskyy while welcoming Trump’s efforts to end the fighting, according to a spokesperson for Downing Street.
Macron separately stressed the need for Ukraine to play a role in any negotiations.
“Ukraine’s future cannot be decided without the Ukrainians, who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,” he wrote on X after what he said were calls with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Starmer.
“Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake,” he added.
Trilateral meeting?
Meanwhile, Reuters and the NBC News broadcaster, quoting US officials, reported that Trump is open to a trilateral summit with Putin and Zelenskyy. But, for now, the White House is planning a bilateral meeting as requested by the Russian leader, they said.
The summit in Alaska, the far-north territory which Russia sold to the US in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.
Nine months after that meeting, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
Trump and Putin last sat together in 2019 at a G20 summit meeting in Japan, during Trump’s first term. They have spoken by telephone several times since January, but the US president has failed to broker peace in Ukraine as he promised he could.
Ukraine and the EU have meanwhile pushed back on peace proposals that they view as ceding too much to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia justifies the war on the grounds of what it calls threats to its security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab.
Moscow has claimed four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.
Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions, and Russia has demanded that Ukraine pull out its troops from the parts that it still controls.
Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia’s Kursk region, a year after they crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations.
Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April.
Fierce fighting meanwhile continues to rage along the more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold about a fifth of the country’s territory.
Russian troops are slowly advancing in Ukraine’s east, but their summer offensive has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, Ukrainian military analysts say.
Ukrainians remain defiant.
“Not a single serviceman will agree to cede territory, to pull out troops from Ukrainian territories,” Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers.