Ukraine's allies, after fears of sellout, signal hope for Trump-Putin talks

Reuters

4 hours ago

BERLIN/KYIV, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine and its European allies on Wednesday signalled hope that U.S. President Donald Trump would push for a ceasefire at talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin without selling out Ukraine's interests or proposing to carve up its territory.
European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Trump in a last-ditch videoconference to lay out red lines ahead of a meeting between Trump and the Russian president in Alaska late on Friday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump agreed that Ukraine must be involved in any discussions about ceding land while Zelenskiy said Trump had supported the idea of security guarantees in a post-war settlement.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Trump - and Europe - were willing to crank up the pressure on Russia if Friday's talks proved fruitless.
The U.S. president said he rated the meeting "a 10", and his apparent willingness to take his allies' concerns on board, if confirmed, could bring a measure of relief after fears that he and Putin could reach a deal over Europe's head at Ukraine's expense.
However, Russia is likely to resist Europe's demands strongly.
"President Trump was very clear that the United States wanted to achieve a ceasefire at this meeting in Alaska," Macron said.
"The second point on which things were very clear, as expressed by President Trump, is that territories belonging to Ukraine cannot be negotiated and will only be negotiated by the Ukrainian president."
Merz, who hosted the virtual meeting, said the principle that borders cannot be changed by force must continue to apply.
"If there is no movement on the Russian side in Alaska, then the United States and we Europeans should ... increase the pressure," he said.
"President Trump knows this position, he shares it very extensively and therefore I can say: We have had a really exceptionally constructive and good conversation with each other."
Trump and Putin are due to discuss how to end the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict, the biggest in Europe since World War Two. Trump has previously said both sides will have to swap land to end fighting that has cost tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions.
On a day of intense diplomacy, Zelenskiy flew into Berlin for German-hosted virtual meetings with European leaders and then with Trump.
He and the Europeans worry that a land swap could leave Russia with almost a fifth of Ukraine, rewarding it for almost 11 years of efforts to seize Ukrainian land, the last three in all-out war, and embolden Putin to expand further west in the future.
Russian forces have made a sharp thrust into eastern Ukraine in recent days in what may be an attempt to increase the pressure on Kyiv to give up land.
Zelenskiy said there should be a three-way meeting between himself, Putin and Trump.
"I told the U.S. president and all our European colleagues that Putin is bluffing (about his stated wish to end the war). He is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all parts of the Ukrainian front. Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine .."
A source familiar with the matter said the call with Trump discussed possible cities that could host a three-way meeting, depending on the outcome of the talks in Alaska.
Since announcing the Alaska summit, Trump has played down expectations, saying it would be a "feel-out" meeting.
Wary of angering Trump, European leaders have repeatedly said they welcome his efforts while stressing that there should be no deal about Ukraine without Ukraine's participation.
Trump's agreement last week to the summit was an abrupt shift after weeks of voicing frustration with Putin for resisting the U.S. peace initiative. Trump said his envoy had made "great progress" at talks in Moscow.
A Gallup poll released last week found that 69% of Ukrainians favour a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible. But polls also indicate Ukrainians do not want peace at any cost if that means crushing concessions.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexei Fadeev earlier said Moscow's stance had not changed since it was set out by Putin in June 2024.
As preconditions for a ceasefire and the start of talks, the Kremlin leader had demanded that Ukraine withdraw its forces from four regions that Russia has claimed as its own but does not fully control, and formally renounce its plans to join NATO.
Kyiv swiftly rejected the conditions as tantamount to surrender.