Key points
- Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine was Trump’s core demand before the Alaska summit
- Ukraine and its European allies were not invited to the meeting
- Trump spoke with Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back from Alaska
ISLAMABAD: European leaders who make up the ‘coalition of the willing’ are set to hold a conference call on Sunday – ahead of crunch talks between Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy next week.
The coalition, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has the aim of bringing countries together to protect a peace deal in Ukraine, according to Sky News.
Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine, more than three years after Russia’s invasion, had been one of the US president’s core demands before the summit, to which Ukraine and its European allies were not invited.
No clear breakthrough
But after a meeting that yielded no clear breakthrough, Trump ruled out an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine — a move that would appear to favor Putin who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal.
Ukraine and its European allies have criticised it as a way to buy time and press Russia’s battlefield advances.
Trump spoke with Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back from Alaska to Washington, saying afterwards that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement which would end the war.”
Ceasefire agreements “often times do not hold up,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform.
Zelensky appears unconvinced
But Zelensky, who is due to visit Washington on Monday, appeared unconvinced by the change of tack, saying on Saturday that it “complicates the situation”.
If Moscow lacks “the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater — peaceful coexistence with its neighbours for decades,” he said on social media.
Harsh reality
Trump expressed support during his call with Zelensky and European leaders for a proposal by Putin to take full control of two largely Russian-held Ukrainian regions in exchange for freezing the frontline in two others, an official briefed on the talks told AFP.
Putin “de facto demands that Ukraine leave Donbas,” an area consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, 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, according to AFP.
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.
Zelensky back in White House
The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky’s talks at the White House on Monday.
An EU source told AFP that a number of European leaders had also been invited to attend.
The Ukrainian president’s last Oval Office visit in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US aid.
Zelensky said Saturday after a “substantive” conversation with Trump about the Alaska summit that he looked forward to his Washington visit and discussing “all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
In an earlier statement, European leaders welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.
