Europe says U.S. and Russia cannot decide on Ukraine land swaps at this week's summit
Ahead of the summit in Alaska on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that a peace deal could include 'some swapping of territories,' but the Europeans see no sign that Russia will offer anything to swap. Europeans and Ukrainians so far are not invited to the summit.
European Union foreign ministers are meeting on Monday following talks on Ukraine among U.S. and European security advisors over the weekend. They are wary that President Vladimir Putin will try to claim a political victory by portraying Ukraine as inflexible.
European leaders call for Ukraine's involvement in Trump-Putin peace talks
Concerns have mounted in Europe and Ukraine that Kyiv may be pressured into giving up land or accepting other curbs on its sovereignty. Ukraine and its European allies reject the notion that Putin should lay claim to any territory even before agreeing to a ceasefire.
'As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine,' EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on the eve of the ministerial meeting.
'A sustainable peace also means that aggression cannot be rewarded,' Kallas said.
On Sunday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany cannot accept that territorial issues in Ukraine would be discussed or decided by Russia and the United States 'over the heads' of Europeans or Ukrainians.
Still, it's hard to ignore the reality on the ground.
Russia in 2022 illegally annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine's east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, even though it doesn't fully control them. It also occupies the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
On the 1,000-kilometre front line, Russia's bigger army has made slow but costly progress with its summer offensive. The relentless pounding of urban areas has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to U.N. estimates.
'In the end, the issue of the fact that the Russians are controlling at this moment, factually, a part of Ukraine has to be on the table' in any peace talks after the Alaska summit, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on CBS on Sunday.
Rutte said Ukraine's Western backers 'can never accept that in a legal sense,' but he suggested that they might tacitly acknowledge Russian control.
He compared it to the way that the U.S. hosted the diplomatic missions of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 1940 to 1991, 'acknowledging that the Soviet Union was controlling those territories, but never accepting (it) in a legal sense.'
Giving up claim to any territory, especially without a ceasefire agreement first, would be almost impossible for Zelensky to sell at home after thousands of troops have died defending their land.
Ultimately, Putin is seen as being not so much interested in land itself, but rather in a more 'Russia-friendly' Ukraine with a malleable government that would be unlikely to try to join NATO, just as pro-Russian regions in Georgia stymied that country's hopes of becoming a member.
Zelensky insists that a halt to fighting on the front line should be the starting point for negotiations, and the Europeans back him. They say that any future land swaps should be for Ukraine to decide and not be a precondition for a ceasefire.
Claims on land could also be part of negotiations on the kind of security guarantees that Ukraine might receive to ensure another war does not break out.
The Europeans believe Kyiv's best defence is strong armed forces to deter Russia from striking again. They insist there should be no restrictions on the size of Ukraine's army and the equipment, arms and ammunition it can possess or sell.
Beyond that, they say Ukraine should not be constrained in its choice of joining the EU or being forced to become a neutral country. The Trump administration has already taken Ukraine's membership of NATO off the table for the foreseeable future.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Grave by grave, a new project in divided Cyprus tries to mend mistrust
TOCHNI, Cyprus (AP) — On opposite sides of ethnically divided Cyprus, even the resting places of the dead haven't been spared the fallout of war. Shattered granite crosses are strewn about the weed-choked Greek Cypriot cemeteries in the island's northern third that's in Turkish Cypriot hands. In the Greek Cypriot south, Muslim headstones in Turkish Cypriot cemeteries are concealed by overgrowth. Until 2003, no one could cross a United Nations-controlled buffer zone to place flowers at loved ones' graves. In the five decades since a Turkish invasion, vandalism and the ravages of time have transformed hundreds of Cyprus' cemeteries into evidence of the geographic and political rift. But even as chances for bilateral talks to end the divide appear bleak, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have teamed up to mend mistrust and push for peace, one grave at a time. Restoration is underway at 15 civilian cemeteries on each side of the so-called Green Line cutting across the Mediterranean island. Expansion of the roughly 700,000-euro project ($815,000) to more cemeteries is being considered. 'The maintenance and restoration of cemeteries constitutes one of the most symbolic and morally pressing acts for a place that strives for reconciliation,' said Sotos Ktoris, a Greek Cypriot member of the committee from both communities overseeing the work. The consequences of war Turkey's 1974 invasion, triggered when Athens-backed supporters of uniting Cyprus with Greece mounted a coup, prompted some 160,000 Greek Cypriots to flee their villages to safety in the south, where the internationally recognized government is seated. Some 45,000 Turkish Cypriots moved north, where authorities declared independence a decade later. To this day, only Turkey recognizes Cyprus' northern authorities. Among the displaced were the custodians of places of worship and cemeteries, both Orthodox Christian and Muslim. Churches in the north were vandalized and looted. Mosques in the south fell into neglect and decay. As part of U.N.-mediated efforts to achieve a peace deal, both sides have found ways to address past wrongs, including the restoration of churches, mosques and other monuments by the committee. Earlier this year, Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar expanded the committee's work to cemetery restoration, with European Union funding and U.N. support and assistance. Work began in May. Seeking mutual respect Greek Cypriot workers last month were rebuilding the 100-year-old stone wall at one Muslim cemetery in Tochni, a village nestled in hilly countryside near the southern coast. Turkish Cypriot residents had outnumbered Greek Cypriots here by nearly three to one until they were transferred north a few months after the Turkish invasion ended. Many Turkish Cypriots from the north are now visiting the village to reconnect with their past, find family homes and honor their ancestors, according to Tochni's Greek Cypriot community leader, Charoulla Efstratiou. 'Just as we demand that they respect us, our dead, our religion and so forth, I believe that we owe the same respect to them,' Efstratiou said. At the Tochni cemetery, a small patch of crimson flowers emerged from the parched soil atop the grave of a man who died 65 years ago, planted recently by his descendants. Putting up crosses In the village of Palaikythro that Turkish Cypriots have renamed Balikesir, broken crosses at the Greek Cypriot cemetery have been set upright again until they're fully mended. Virtually nothing was left intact. Turkish Cypriot contractor Recep Güler said it wasn't easy to restore the external walls and gate. Mürüde Erzen, the village's Turkish Cypriot community leader, said the cemetery is part of shared cultural heritage. 'When I saw this place, I was very upset, wondering why it had become like this,' Erzen told the United Nations Development Program in footage shared with the AP. Turkish Cypriot authorities had denied the AP access. When Erzen became community leader, she resolved to do something about it. Sotiroulla Mina Iniati, the Greek Cypriot community leader of Palaikythro, said the cost of full restoration of crosses will be borne by families or the community council. Greek Cypriots continue to elect their own community leader to affirm their claim to their lost lands and preserve their memory. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'For us, this is a sacred place,' Iniati said. 'We feel that in this way, the souls of our dead who have for 51 years remain neglected, will be able to rest.' An intractable dispute The last major push for a peace deal in Cyprus collapsed in 2017. Today, the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey shun the U.N.-endorsed framework for reunifying Cyprus as a federation. They insist on a two-state deal that Greek Cypriots reject because they view partition as dooming the island to Turkey's influence, with its military hardware and troops stationed there in perpetuity. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has met Christodoulides and Tatar twice this year and is expected to meet them again in the coming months in a bid to keep peace talks alive.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Maine clinics hope to get blocked Medicaid funds restored as they sue Trump administration over cuts
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A network of clinics that provides health care in Maine is expected to ask a judge Thursday to restore its Medicaid funding while it fights a Trump administration effort to keep federal money from going to abortion providers. President Donald Trump's policy and tax bill, known as the ' big beautiful bill,' blocked Medicaid money from flowing to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, a much smaller provider that provides health care services in one of the poorest and most rural states in the Northeast. Maine Family Planning filed a federal lawsuit last month seeking to restore reimbursements. Lawyers and representatives for Maine Family Planning say its 18 clinics provide vital services across the state including cervical cancer screenings, contraception and primary care to low-income residents. They also say the funding cut occurred even though Medicaid dollars are not used for its abortion services. 'Without Medicaid, MFP will be forced to stop providing all primary care for all patients — regardless of their insurance status — by the end of October,' the organization said in a statement, adding that about 8,000 patients receive family planning and primary care from the network. It also said many Maine Family Planning clinics 'provide care in very rural areas of the state where there are no other health care providers, and around 70% of their patients rely exclusively on MFP and will not see any other health care provider in a given year.' Wednesdays What's next in arts, life and pop culture. In court documents, Anne Marie Costello, deputy director for the Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services, called the request to restore funding 'legally groundless' and said it 'must be firmly rejected.' 'The core of its claim asks this Court to revive an invented constitutional right to abortion — jurisprudence that the Supreme Court decisively interred — and to do so in a dispute over federal funds,' Costello said. While advocates of cutting Medicaid for abortion providers focused on Planned Parenthood, the bill did not mention it by name. Instead it cut off reimbursements for organizations that are primarily engaged in family planning services — which generally include things such as contraception, abortion and pregnancy tests — and received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023. The U.S. Senate's parliamentarian rejected a 2017 effort to defund Planned Parenthood because it was written to exclude all other providers by barring payments only to groups that received more than $350 million a year in Medicaid funds. Maine Family Planning asserts in its legal challenge that the threshold was lowered to $800,000 this time around to make sure Planned Parenthood would not be the only entity affected. It is the only other organization that has come forward publicly to say its funding is at risk.
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Trump warns Russia of ‘severe consequences' if war doesn't end
U.S. President Donald Trump said Russia would face 'very severe consequences' if it doesn't move toward peace with Ukraine, but some wonder if Trump will follow through on his tough talk when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week.
