Europe and Ukraine press US ahead of Trump-Putin talks

KYIV/LONDON - European leaders on Aug 9 welcomed US President Donald Trump’s plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war in Ukraine, while stressing the need to keep pressure on Moscow and protect Ukrainian and European security interests.

Mr Trump announced on Aug 8 that he would

meet Mr Putin in Alaska

on Aug 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict.

Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Mr Trump said it would involve “some swopping of territories to the betterment of both”. It

could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory

– an outcome Kyiv and its European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression.

The US President is open to a trilateral summit with Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky, but for now, the White House is planning a bilateral meeting as requested by Mr Putin, a White House official said. 

US Vice-President J.D. Vance met British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and representatives of Ukraine and European allies on Aug 9 at Chevening House, a country mansion south-east of London, to discuss Mr Trump’s push for peace.

A joint statement from the French, Italian, German, Polish, British and Finnish leaders and the president of the European Commission welcomed Mr Trump’s efforts, while stressing the need to maintain support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia.

“We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests,” they said.

“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,” it said, while adding: “The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.”

The leaders also said “they remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force”, and added: “The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”

They also said negotiations could take place only in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities.

A European official confirmed a counter-proposal was put forward by European representatives at the meeting but declined to provide details.

It was not clear what, if anything, had been agreed at Chevening, but Mr Zelensky earlier called the meeting constructive.

“All our arguments were heard,” he said, in his evening address to Ukrainians.

“The path to peace for Ukraine should be determined together and only together with Ukraine, this is a key principle.”

He had earlier

rejected any territorial concessions,

saying “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier”.

His chief of staff, Mr 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,” Mr Yermak said on social media platform X, reiterating Kyiv’s position that it will reject any territorial concessions to Russia.

He also thanked Mr Vance for “respecting all points of views” and his efforts toward a “reliable peace”.

A European official confirmed a counter-proposal was put forward by European representatives at the Chevening meeting but declined to provide details.

The Wall Street Journal said European officials had presented a counter-proposal that included demands that a ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken and that any territory exchange must be reciprocal, with firm security guarantees.

“You can’t start a process by ceding territory in the middle of fighting,” it quoted one European negotiator as saying.

A US official said “hours-long” meetings at Chevening “produced significant progress towards President Trump’s goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine, ahead of President Trump and President Putin’s upcoming meeting in Alaska”.

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about the European counter-proposals.

‘Clear steps needed’

Mr Zelensky has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine’s allies since an Aug 6 visit to Moscow by Mr Trump’s envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff – a visit that Mr Trump described as having achieved “great progress”.

“Clear steps are needed, as well as maximum coordination between us and our partners,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on X earlier on Aug 9.

Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Mr Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia’s security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West.

Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab.

Moscow has previously claimed four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia invaded and illegally 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 of all four of them that it still controls.

Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia’s Kursk region, a year after its troops crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia claimed it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April.

Ms Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, described the current peace push as “the first more or less realistic attempt to stop the war”.

“At the same time, I remain extremely sceptical about the implementation of the agreements, even if a truce is reached for a while. And there is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine,” she said.

Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1,000km front line along eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold around 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,” Ms Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers. REUTERS