Europe and Ukraine launch last-ditch diplomatic drive ahead of Trump-Putin summit
Despite Russia's invasion impacting them most directly, European powers and Ukraine have not been invited to the Trump-Putin summit at Anchorage's Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. There is growing alarm in Europe that the leaders from Washington and Moscow could emerge with an agreement disastrous for Ukraine and the continent's vulnerability to future Russian attack.
In a week of frantic diplomacy, the virtual summit will include Trump alongside the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, France, Britain, Finland, Italy, Poland and the European Union and NATO, said the German government, which has organized the call.
Zelenskyy will be in Berlin, where he will also sit down with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the latest of what he said Wednesday had been more than 30 conversations with world leaders this week.
The digitally linked gaggle of leaders 'will address, among other things, further options for exerting pressure on Russia,' the German government spokesperson said, adding that 'peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security' would be on the agenda.
Most European leaders fear that Russia will not stop at the 20% of Ukraine it currently occupies following its 2022 full-scale invasion, and instead may use this landgrab from which to launch further attacks on Moscow's former Soviet vassals. Putin has described the fall of the USSR as a historic tragedy, and believes the Baltic states, which are now members of the E.U. and NATO, should be brought back within his sphere of influence.
Wednesday's calls are a show of European unity behind Ukraine and other Russian neighbors who fear its next move. E.U. leaders will hold separate telephone discussions before and after the call with Trump, the latter including Canada, indicating the level of coordination between them.
European powers say that there must be a ceasefire before peace talks can begin — something rejected by Russia — and that negotiations cannot happen without Ukraine. They argue Ukraine must have 'security guarantees,' perhaps in the form of Western peacekeepers, so the Kremlin does not use the pause to regroup and attack again.
'There is currently no sign that the Russians are preparing to end the war,' Zelenskyy said in a statement Wednesday. 'Our coordinated efforts and joint steps — by Ukraine, the United States, Europe, and all countries that want peace — can definitely force Russia to peace. Thank you to everyone who helps!'
In reality, it is unclear how much leverage Europe will have. They have regularly been frozen out of discussions between U.S.-Russia discussions. And the once unified position they shared with former President Joe Biden — who agreed Russia posed a threat not just to Ukraine but the West — has been replaced by the current administration's far more Kremlin-receptive stance, albeit with several verbal diatribes by Trump toward Putin in recent months.
Trump has 'deep respect for all parties that are involved in this conflict,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing Tuesday, describing the war as something that 'broke out' between Russia and Ukraine — rather than characterizing it as an unprovoked invasion.
'I think the president of the United States getting in the room with the president of Russia — sitting face to face, rather than speaking over the telephone — will give this president the best indication of how to end this war and where this is headed,' Leavitt said, calling it a 'listening exercise.'
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