European foreign ministers are holding emergency talks to discuss their next steps before a landmark meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The talks come amid fears that Ukraine will be excluded and forced into unacceptable territorial compromises to end the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fourth year.
“The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine,” leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Finland, and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement ahead of the call. The European Union has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any deal to end the war. EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, emphasized that “the US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,” but “any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security.”
Trump later on Monday said that his meeting with Putin will be a “feel-out meeting” aimed at ending the war. “So I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I’m going to be telling him, you’ve got to end this war. You’ve got to end it,” Trump told reporters. Trump also said a future meeting could include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said on Monday that concessions to Moscow would not persuade it to stop fighting and that there was a need to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin. “Concessions do not persuade a killer,” he said.
Zelenskyy insists he will never consent to any Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory nor give up his country’s bid for NATO membership. European leaders have also underscored their commitment to the idea that international borders cannot be changed by force. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed support for Trump’s efforts to end the war with Ukraine, as long as the terms for ending the war are not dictated. “Any peace must be built with Ukraine, not imposed upon it, and we will not reward aggression or compromise sovereignty. Ukraine will decide its own future, and we will support it every step of the way,” he said.
In the meantime, aerial exchanges have intensified with diplomatic momentum to end the war in play. Ukraine claimed to have hit a facility that produces missile components in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region. Local authorities said one person was killed in the attack and two were wounded. The Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence units destroyed a total of 59 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Tula region, as well as over the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has organized an online meeting between Zelenskyy and key European leaders. The meeting is scheduled for August 13, two days before Trump’s meeting with Putin. Leaders from Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Poland are also expected to join, along with a representative from NATO. The summit comes as Washington seeks to broker a potential resolution to the war in Ukraine.