In preparation for a meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump to discuss ways of ending the Russian war against Ukraine, European leaders have already made some notes on security guarantees for Kyiv and other pressing questions.
European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a Monday visit to Washington to see US President Donald Trump in a collective bid to find a way to end Moscow’s invasion, with the US offering security guarantees for Kyiv.
The meeting follows a summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that failed to yield any breakthrough on an immediate ceasefire that the US leader had been pushing for.
The leaders heading to Washington on Monday to appear alongside Zelensky call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.
They include British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Also heading to Washington will be Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who get on well with Trump.
Macron said on Sunday that the European leaders would ask Trump how far he would back security guarantees for Ukraine, adding he did not think Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted peace.
The French leader emphasised Europe’s will to present a united front with Ukrainians and ask the Americans “to what extent” they are ready to contribute to the security guarantees that would be offered to Ukraine in a peace agreement.
“No country can accept the loss of territories unless it has security guarantees for its remaining territory,” Macron said, adding that if Europe appears weak today “we will pay a heavy price tomorrow.
Macron was speaking from his summer residence after joining a video conference with other European leaders to coordinate their joint position before the meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday.
On Moscow’s position, he commented: “There is only one state proposing a peace that would be a capitulation: Russia.”
Peace deal without a ceasefire?
After the Alaska meeting, Trump pivoted to say that he was now seeking a peace deal, even without a ceasefire. On Sunday, he posted “BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA. Stay tuned!” on his Truth Social platform but did not elaborate.
Trump’s Russia envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday on CNN that Trump and Putin had agreed in their summit on “robust security guarantees” for Ukraine.
But Zelenskyy, on a Brussels visit on Sunday hosted by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, rejected the idea of Russia offering his country security guarantees.
“What President Trump said about security guarantees is much more important to me than Putin’s thoughts, because Putin will not give any security guarantees,” he said.
Later, Zelenskyy posted on X: “This is a historic decision that the United States is ready to take part in security guarantees for Ukraine.” He added: “Security guarantees, as a result of our joint work, must really be very practical, delivering protection on land, in the air, and at sea, and must be developed with Europe’s participation.”
Von der Leyen also hailed the US offer to provide security guarantees modelled on – but separate from – NATO’s collective security arrangement, known as Article 5.
“We welcome President Trump’s willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine, and the coalition of the willing, including the European Union, is ready to do its share,” von der Leyen said.
Territorial concessions?
Trump’s pivot to looking for a peace deal, not a ceasefire, aligns with the stance long taken by Putin, and which Ukraine and its European allies have criticised as Putin’s way to buy time with the intent of making battlefield gains.
Witkoff, in his CNN interview, elaborated that the United States was prepared to provide their “game-changing” security guarantees as part of a process that would involve territorial “concessions”.
Zelenskyy reiterated that the Ukrainian constitution makes it impossible to cede any territory.
“We need real negotiations, which means they can start where the front line is now […] Russia is still unsuccessful in the Donetsk region. Putin has been unable to take it for twelve years,” the Ukrainian leader said.
However, he added that since the territorial issue is so important, “it should be discussed only by the leaders of Ukraine and Russia at the trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the United States, and Russia.”
“So far, Russia has given no sign that such a trilateral meeting will happen”, he said.
According to an official briefed on a call Trump held with Zelenskyy and European leaders as he flew back from Alaska, the US leader supported a Putin proposal that Russia take full control of two eastern Ukrainian regions in exchange for freezing the frontline in two others.
Putin “de facto demands that Ukraine leave Donbas,” an area consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, which Russia currently only partly controls, the source said.
In exchange, Russian forces would halt their offensive in the Black Sea port region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, where the main cities are still under Ukrainian control.
Several months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all four Ukrainian regions even though its troops still do not fully control any of them.
“The Ukrainian president refused to leave Donbas,” the source said.
What sort of consequences?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to NBC on Sunday, warned of “consequences” – including the potential imposition of new sanctions on Russia – if no peace deal is reached on Ukraine.
Von der Leyen also emphasised that “this peace must be achieved through strength” and Europe was preparing one more sanction package: “We have adopted 18 packages so far, and we are advancing preparation for the nineteenth. This package will be forthcoming in early September”.
(bms, sm)
