Zelensky calls for ‘army of Europe’ against Russia

Sikorski, whose words were greeted with laughter from the audience, said he would also tell Trump that credibility — not just of his administration, but of America itself — depends on the way the war ends.

If the war ended with President Putin turning Ukraine into a Russian vassal, it would also “send a message to China that you can recover what you regard as a renegade province [Taiwan]”.

Ministers in the British government had been warned something big was coming. On Wednesday morning, as John Healey, the defence secretary, prepared to address dozens of his counterparts at Nato headquarters in Brussels, US officials told him President Trump would be speaking later in the day.

As his team theorised about what he could say — checking Trump’s Truth Social platform for any sudden outbursts — none predicted the storm of controversy that came next.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s new Pentagon chief — a former Fox News host and military veteran — told allies it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders and downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato as he spoke before a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a coalition of nations helping in the fight against Russian aggression.

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President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has, to some extent, already failed.

In February 2022, the Russian president ordered his troops to conquer Kyiv, decapitate Ukraine’s democratically elected government and install a puppet leader loyal to the Kremlin.

Three years later and one thing is clear: Putin has underestimated Ukrainian resolve. President Zelensky remains alive and Kyiv is no longer threatened by Russian tanks.

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After almost three years of the largest war in Europe since 1945, the precise scale of the death toll in Ukraine depends on who you listen to.

President Trump said last month that one million Russian soldiers and 700,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed. That figure is far higher, however, than any other estimates by either Russia or Ukraine or by western intelligence agencies.

Ukraine has been reluctant to provide casualty figures over fears that they could demoralise society. However, President Zelensky said in December that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died. His comments came after Trump claimed in separate remarks that month that 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers had lost their lives.

• What is the actual death toll in the Ukraine war?

The blunt announcement that there would be no Nato membership for Ukraine, along with President Trump’s warm words for Vladimir Putin, hit with a heavy thud among those who have paid and are paying the highest price for Ukraine’s freedom.

“What can I say?” asked Yura, a middle-aged volunteer soldier home for two days from the front outside Pokrovsk where Ukrainian forces are battling to prevent Russian troops breaking through their last defensive lines.

“Now, after three years, they talk? How many lives have we lost in that time? And for what? Those are not two humans, those are two savages. Maybe Ukraine, the state, will give up but the people never will now they have tasted freedom. I don’t know how it is possible to negotiate over human life.”

• How do Ukraine’s soldiers feel about Trump’s peace deal?

David Lammy has said the British government will set out plans in the next few months to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP from the current two per cent. Speaking to the Munich Security Conference, he also stressed that there was an “irreversible pathway” for Ukraine to join Nato.

“This is the front line, not just for Ukraine, but for Europe,” the foreign secretary said. “We know, too, that even when we get to a negotiated peace, Putin will not go away, so this is an existential question for Europe.

“The UK is absolutely committed to 2.5 percent of GPD spent on defence and we will set out the pathway for this in a few months’ time,” he said, adding: “There is an irreversible pathway for Ukraine towards Nato. That is the cheapest and the best mechanism to secure peace, not just in Europe, but across the Euro-Atlantic.”

The German foreign minister has said there can be “no lasting peace in Ukraine” unless the Europeans are involved in the settlement, after President Trump cut the continent out of his negotiations with the Kremlin.

Annalena Baerbock also became the latest in a series of senior German politicians to summarily dismiss the US vice-president JD Vance’s attempts to end the ostracism of the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

“If radical extremist forces … declare war on our democracy, we have to be strong enough to act,” she told the Munich Security Conference.

“This is a moment of truth. Everybody in the world must decide if they stand with the free world or with those who are fighting against the free world.”

Romania has been rattled by the American vice-president’s attack on the annulment of a hard-right politician’s unexpected election victory.

Among the targets singled out by JD Vance in his diatribe against the European political establishment was a Romanian court ruling that voided the first round of the presidential election after Calin Georgescu, a strident critic of Nato and admirer of President Putin, had won.

The verdict relied on claims by the security services that Georgescu’s campaign had been supercharged by $1 million in foreign donations and the manipulation of TikTok to boost his posts.

Georgescu has seized on the opportunity to berate the “monstrosity of the oppressive and antidemocratic system” in his country.

“We received oppression and abuse in exchange for our dignity!” he wrote on X. “Europe treats us like slaves, and if we don’t obey the orders from Brussels, we get bullied as a reminder that we have no rights, only obligations!”

Elon Musk has doubled down on the Trump administration’s efforts to bring the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to power in Berlin.

With a week to go before the Bundestag election, the AfD is projected to come second but will almost certainly be locked out of government because the other parties regard it as an extremist pariah.

On Friday, however, the US vice-president JD Vance demanded that Berlin abolish this “firewall” against the AfD and held a meeting with Alice Weidel, the party’s candidate for the chancellorship.

Both the German chancellor and the leader of the opposition have angrily rejected this as “interference” in their country’s politics.

Musk, the multi-billionaire head of Trump’s powerful agency for budget cuts and an enthusiastic supporter of Weidel, posted on X simply: “AfD!”

Ukraine has reportedly rejected demands by Donald Trump to hand over the rights to half its vast reserves of rare earth minerals as payment for its military support and is trying to hold out for better terms.

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, attempted to persuade Volodymyr Zelensky to sign up to the deal during a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, the Financial Times reported.

Trump claims Ukraine owes it half a trillion dollars for assistance it has given Kyiv in helping to repel the Russian invasion — and wants the sum repaid in the form of minerals, from lithium to titanium, that are vital for manufacturing new technologies.

“We are still talking,” the newspaper quoted Zelensky as saying in Munich on Saturday. “I have had different dialogues.”

Ukraine’s main concern is reportedly the failure of the proposed deal to provide firm security guarantees. It is thought merely to state that a US presence on the country’s territory should act as protection against further Russian incursions.

Mark Rutte has warned European countries that they are not producing enough military armaments to combat Russia.

“A huge problem will be discussed in The Hague, which is that we are not producing enough in the US and Europe,” the Nato secretary general said. “Right now, Russia produces as much ammunition in three months as all European countries produce in 20 times the amount.

“So yes, Russia has put its economy on a military track, but we have not done it yet.”

Mark Rutte has said he is optimistic about talks with the Trump administration over United States involvement in Nato, after warnings the US president could be looking to withdraw from the security alliance.

The secretary general of Nato said the US is “fully committed” to the alliance, adding: “We are one family.”

Rutte also conceded that Donald Trump was right on defence spending, telling a crowd at the Munich Security Conference: “We are not spending enough.”

“The United States is fully committed … to the expectation that we must spend more, do more. We have to do that. I think that will be a key issue.”

Trump has previously called on all Nato members to increase military spending to more than five per cent of GDP.

For Britain and the EU, the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House has meant political turbulence. For Ukraine, which is dependent on American support against Russian military aggression, the change is little short of existential.

President Zelensky acknowledged this new reality with a speech today in which he sought to align the interests of his own country, which wants to join both Nato and the EU, with those of Europe as a whole.

Trump’s America, he warned his audience at the Munich Security Conference, “might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it” because “the old days are over”.

Zelensky’s suggestion that the continent’s leaders should respond to this new geopolitical reality by speaking with a “single voice” is uncontroversial. His call for creation of “an army for Europe” risks taking him into more contentious territory.

The EU’s members have long discussed ways of strengthening mutual military co-operation, but have disagreed on how to do so without giving up control of their own armed forces or undermining Nato.

Britain and Europe must do more to share the burden of regional security, David Lammy and John Healey have said.

The foreign secretary and the defence secretary called for increased defence spending across the continent as they warned a “bad peace” would damage the UK economy.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, they said: “A durable peace must be based on new security arrangements: Europe doubling down to do more on our own continent’s security; a continuing, long-term US commitment to its allies through Nato; and British support to the US and allies in the Indo-Pacific.”

They added: “A bad peace would not only harm our security, but our economies too.”

The German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, said that as chancellor he would make an “executive decision” to give the Ukrainians Taurus missiles, which have a range of more than 300 miles.

Kyiv is particularly keen on the missiles because they have highly sophisticated navigation systems and warheads that can penetrate even hardened concrete fortifications. Up to now, though, Berlin has consistently refused to follow the example of Britain, France and the US, which have all handed Ukraine similar weapons.

Asked if the UK could take on a military “leadership role” in Europe if the US continues its strategic retreat, Merz replied: “I would like to have Britain as a very close partner. I still think it’s regrettable that Britain left the EU.

“I think it was unnecessary … But that is in the past. We have to do everything we can to ensure that Britain is as close as possible to the EU and also works with us in Nato.”

Friedrich Merz, the favourite to replace Olaf Scholz as German chancellor, has taken issue with JD Vance’s demand that Germany’s mainstream parties drop their “firewall” against co-operation with the hard right.

“We accept the results of the US presidential and congressional elections, and we expect they will do the same for ours,” he said.

He also said there was no point in starting a transatlantic trade war following several rounds of tariffs proposed against Germany and the rest of Europe. “We want a zero-tariff solution.”

The frontrunner to become the next German chancellor has rebuked the Trump administration for excluding a news agency’s reporters from White House events, in a rejoinder to scathing criticism of Europe by the US vice president.

JD Vance had accused Germany, Britain and other European states of persecuting political minorities and shutting down dissenting opinions.

Asked for his response, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the German conservative opposition, pointed to an incident where a journalist from the Associated Press agency had been barred from accessing the Oval Office and the presidential jet.

The White House announced last night that this ban had been extended to all of the agency’s reporters because it refused to follow an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.

“We would never throw journalists out of our federal press conference,” Merz told the Munich Security Conference.

The Ukrainian leader confirmed that he told President Trump that “Putin is afraid of you” during their phone call on Wednesday.

Asked at the Munich Security Conference whether he had made the reported comments, President Zelensky replied: “I told Trump that Putin is afraid of him, and he heard me, and now Putin knows.”

Trump is said to have told Zelensky that he believed Putin was serious about a peace deal, despite Zelensky’s belief that the Russian leader was only stalling for more time to prepare for a further offensive.

Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “not happy” that President Trump did not speak to him before discussing peace talks with President Putin, but added that he was thankful the US had not frozen its military support for Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader said he wanted to meet Trump to discuss any agreement with Russia. He told the Munich Security Conference: “We need urgent, very concrete steps. We have to start immediately to start to do more deep decisions. We have to work on it.”

Asked about comments made by Trump, JD Vance and other US officials about a potential deal, he said: “I think they are preparing [an] atmosphere for their dialogue … between Trump and Putin. It is up to them, they can discuss anything they want but not about Ukraine without us. That is why it is a little bit dangerous, we need to talk more with the president, with his people, with his teams.”

Vladimir Putin has become Nato’s “most influential member” because of the way the Russian leader has been allowed to block the alliance’s decisions, President Zelensky claimed.

The Ukrainian leader insisted he would not take his country’s long-standing request for membership “off the table” despite the assertion this week by Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, that it “was not a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement”.

“The [most] influential member of Nato seems to be Putin, because his whims have the power to block Nato decisions,” Zelensky said. “And that’s despite the fact that it was Ukraine’s army that stopped Russia, not a Nato country, not Nato troops, but only our people and our army.”

In a telephone conversation with Zelensky on the eve of the conference, Sir Keir Starmer confirmed that Britain would continue to back Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to joining the alliance, Downing Street said. This remains the alliance’s official policy.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has called for “an army of Europe” and for its leaders to speak with “a single voice” to defend the continent against Russian aggression, indicating that it can no longer rely on America under Donald Trump for its defence.

“As we fight this war and lay the groundwork for peace and security, we must build the armed forces of Europe so that Europe’s future depends only on Europeans, and decisions about Europe are made in Europe,” Zelensky told the Munich Security Conference.

The Ukrainian leader told the gathering: “Some in Europe may not fully understand what’s happening in Washington right now, but let’s focus on understanding ourselves right here in Europe, we must give strength to Europe first.”

President Zelensky called for a “strong Europe” to decide the future of Ukraine as he vowed that his country would “never accept deals made behind our backs”.

Zelenksky said Europe should have a “seat at the table” for any negotiations with Russia on bringing an end to the war instead of leaving any deal to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

“If we are left out of negotiations over our own future, then we all lost,” he said. “Europe needs a single voice not a dozen different ones.”

He also called on Europe to have its own armed forces and added: “This isn’t about replacing our allies, this is making Europe’s contribution equal to America’s.”

Olaf Scholz, the German leader, said he “could not understand” the various statements on proposed peace talks from Donald Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who said the US was already prepared to grant Russia significant concessions on Ukraine’s territory and deny Nato membership for Kyiv.

Scholz said a deal that favoured Russia and hollowed out Ukraine’s defences would only “further endanger peace and stability in Europe”.

He insisted that Europe would keep providing Ukraine with weapons for “as long as is necessary”.

“This is my clear message to the Russian president: the support from the US and Europe will continue,” he said.

Scholz also said his €100 billion fund to rearm the German military was only a “first step” and pledged to lift the “debt brake” that straitjackets public borrowing so that his country could prepare for a defence budget that might stretch into more than €100 billion a year.

Olaf Scholz said peace in Ukraine would only be possible if it secured the country’s sovereignty.

The German chancellor vowed that Europe would continue to support Ukraine for “as long as necessary”, including after any ceasefire deal was agreed.

“There will only be peace if Ukraine’s sovereignty is secured,” he told the conference. “A dictated peace will therefore never find our support.”

Germany’s chancellor has emphatically rejected the US vice president’s demand for mainstream parties to tear down their “firewalls” against the hard right.

After his blistering attack on Europe’s established politics on Friday, JD Vance met Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for be chancellor, while pointedly snubbing Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic incumbent.

Asked about Vance’s claim that Germany and other European countries were undermining their own democracies by suppressing political dissent, Scholz insisted that his country was a “strong” democracy that needed to defend itself against right-wing extremists because of its 20th century history.

“We reject every notion that we should work together with parties that are on the extreme right,” Scholz told the conference.

Ukraine “will not be Vladimir Putin’s last target”, Nato’s most senior military officer has warned, as he called for European allies to double their production of weapons to prepare for war.

Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the new chair of the alliance’s military committee, said history showed the Russian leader could not be trusted and Nato would “watch him” as Ukraine peace talks developed.

Although countries need to do more, Nato is ready for conflict and would outmatch Russia’s conventional defence capabilities and its nuclear weapons stockpile should tensions escalate, he said.

• New Nato military chief: Ukraine will not be Putin’s last target

President Zelensky will address the “prospects for Ukraine’s future” at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning.

The first main session features the Ukrainian leader in conversation with Christiane Amanpour, the British-Iranian journalist who is chief international anchor for CNN.

It will be followed by a panel discussion on European support for Ukraine featuring the president of the European Council, the Czech president, the prime ministers of Sweden and Denmark and Friedrich Merz, who is likely to become Germany’s next chancellor.

President Zelensky admitted it would be “very difficult” for Ukraine to survive without US support, as he expressed his concerns about Donald Trump’s push to end the war.

In an interview with NBC, Zelensky said he believed President Putin only wanted a ceasefire to give his military time to prepare for a further offensive, rather than genuine peace. “He wants pause, prepare, train, take off some sanctions,” Zelensky told NBC’s Kristin Welker.

He added: “We will have low chance, low chance, to survive without support of the United States … I think it’s very important, critical.”

The TV interview was published after Zelensky met the US vice president, JD Vance, at the Munich Security Conference on Friday and called for “security guarantees” for Ukraine.