Trump and Putin to meet in Alaska amid Ukraine conflict tensions
The Kremlin later confirmed the summit, calling the location 'quite logical'.
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Otago Daily Times
an hour ago
- Otago Daily Times
Europe stresses need to protect Ukrainian interests
European leaders have welcomed United States President Donald Trump's plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war in Ukraine. But they have stressed the need to keep pressure on Moscow and protect Ukrainian and European security interests. Trump plans to meet Putin in Alaska on August 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 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 Trump said it would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both". It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory, an outcome Zelenskyy and his European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression. US Vice President JD Vance met British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and representatives of Ukraine and European allies on Saturday at Chevening House, a country mansion southeast of London, to discuss 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 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," the statement 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 said negotiations could only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities. Zelenskyy's chief of staff, 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," Yermak said on X, reiterating Kyiv's position that it will reject any territorial concessions to Russia. Yermak also thanked Vance for "respecting all points of views" and his efforts toward a "reliable peace." A European official confirmed a counterproposal 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 counterproposal 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 toward 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 counterproposals. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke and pledged to find a "just and lasting peace" in Ukraine and "unwavering support" for Zelenskyy while welcoming Trump's efforts to end the fighting, a Downing Street spokesperson said. It was not clear what, if anything, had been agreed at Chevening, but Zelenskyy earlier called the meeting constructive. "The path to peace for Ukraine should be determined together and only together with Ukraine, this is key principle," he said in his evening address to Ukrainians. NBC News cited an unnamed US official as saying that the Trump administration was considering inviting Zelenskyy to join the US and Russian presidents at their Alaska meeting. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this, and Russian and Ukrainian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Macron stressed the need for Ukraine to play a role in any negotiations. "Ukraine's future cannot be decided without the Ukrainians, who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now," he wrote on X after what he said were calls with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Starmer. "Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake." 'CLEAR STEPS NEEDED' Zelenskyy has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine's allies since Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Wednesday which Trump described as having achieved "great progress". Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to 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 was 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 that they still control. Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia's Kursk region a year after they crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the current peace push was the first "more or less realistic" attempt to stop the war but she remained sceptical about the agreements being implemented. "There is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine," she said. Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1000km front line in 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," Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers.
RNZ News
4 hours ago
- RNZ News
The White House considering inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska
United States' President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on 28 February 2025. Photo: AFP / SAUL LOEB The White House is considering inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska, where United States' President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on 15 August, NBC News has reported. The report cited a senior US official and three people briefed on the internal discussions. "It's being discussed," one of the people briefed on the talks was quoted as saying. The report added that no Zelensky visit was finalised and that it was unclear if the Ukrainian leader would ultimately be in Alaska for meetings but it remained a possibility. - Reuters
NZ Herald
5 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Zelenskyy: Ukraine won't cede land for peace amid US-Russia summit
Zelenskyy also urged Ukraine's allies to take 'clear steps' towards achieving a sustainable peace, during a call with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer. National security advisers from Kyiv's allies – including the United States, EU nations and the UK – were gathering in Britain on Saturday to align their views before the Putin-Trump summit. French President Emmanuel Macron, following phone calls with Zelenskyy, Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said 'the future of Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukrainians' and that Europe also had to be involved in the negotiations. Later Saturday, in his evening address, Zelenskyy added: 'There must be an honest end to this war, and it is up to Russia to end the war it started.' A 'dignified peace' Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this year have failed to bear fruit, and it remains unclear whether a summit could bring peace any closer as the warring sides' positions are still far apart. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes. Putin has resisted multiple calls from the United States, Europe and Kyiv for a ceasefire. Putin, a former KGB officer in power in Russia for over 25 years, has ruled out holding talks with Zelenskyy at this stage. Ukraine's leader has been pushing for a three-way summit and has frequently said meeting Putin is the only way to make progress towards peace. Far from the war The summit in Alaska, the far-north territory which Russia sold to the United States in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021. Nine months later, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. Zelenskyy said of the location that it was 'very far away from this war, which is raging on our land, against our people'. The Kremlin said the choice was 'logical' because the state close to the Arctic is on the border between the two countries, and this is where their 'economic interests intersect'. Moscow has also invited Trump to pay a reciprocal visit to Russia later. Trump and Putin last sat together in 2019 at a G20 summit meeting in Japan during Trump's first term. They have spoken by telephone several times since January with Trump trying to broker peace in Ukraine without making a breakthrough. On Friday, Putin held a round of calls with allies, including Brazil, China and India, in a diplomatic flurry before the Alaska summit. In a 40-minute phone conversation Saturday between Putin and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian leader reiterated his support for dialogue 'and the pursuit of a peaceful solution', his office said. The US President had earlier imposed an additional tariff on India for buying Russia's oil in a bid to nudge Moscow into talks. He also threatened to impose a similar tax on China, but so far has refrained from doing so. Fighting goes on Russia and Ukraine continued pouring dozens of drones on to each other's positions in an exchange of attacks in the early hours of Saturday. A bus carrying civilians was hit in Ukraine's frontline city of Kherson, killing two people and wounding 16. The Russian army claimed to have taken Yablonovka, another village in the Donetsk region, the site of the most intense fighting in the east and one of the five regions Putin says is part of Russia. Four people were killed as of Saturday morning in Donetsk after Russian shelling, Ukrainian authorities said. In 2022, the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite not having full control over them. Russia had previously annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. As a prerequisite to any peace settlement, Moscow demanded Kyiv pull its forces out of the regions and commit to being a neutral state, shun Western military support and be excluded from joining Nato. Kyiv said it would never recognise Russian control over its sovereign territory, though it acknowledged that getting land captured by Russia back would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield. - Agence France-Presse
