{"id":6635,"date":"2025-08-18T07:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/6635\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T07:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:54:10","slug":"european-leaders-to-join-volodymyr-zelensky-for-crunch-talks-with-donald-trump-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/6635\/","title":{"rendered":"European leaders to join Volodymyr Zelensky for crunch talks with Donald Trump in Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u00a0<strong>European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelensky for crunch war talks with Donald Trump in Washington\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelensky to meet Donald Trump in Washington, they said yesterday, seeking to shore up the Ukrainian leader\u2019s position as the US president presses him to accept a quick peace deal to end Europe\u2019s deadliest war in 80 years.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump is leaning on Mr Zelensky to strike an agreement after the US president met Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in Alaska and emerged more aligned with Moscow on seeking a peace deal instead of a ceasefire first. Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky will meet today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands &#8230; we may unfortunately wind up there, but we don\u2019t want to wind up there,\u201d US secretary of state Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS\u2019s Face the Nation.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump yesterday promised \u201cbig progress on Russia\u201d in a social \u00admedia post, without specifying what this might be. Sources briefed on Moscow\u2019s thinking told Reuters the US and Russian leaders have discussed proposals for Russia to relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv ceding a swathe of fortified land in the east and freezing the front lines elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Top Trump officials \u00adhinted that the fate of Ukraine\u2019s eastern Donbas region \u2013 which incorporates Donetsk and Luhansk and which is already mostly under Russian control \u2013 was on the line, while some sort of defensive pact was also on the table.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were able to win the following concession, that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection,\u201d Trump envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN yesterday, suggesting this would be in lieu of Ukraine seeking Nato membership. \u201cThe United States could offer Article 5 protection, which was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Article 5 of Nato\u2019s founding treaty enshrines the principle of collective defence \u2013 the notion that an attack on a single member is considered an attack on them all. That pledge may not be enough to sway leaders in Kyiv to sign over Donbas.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s borders were already meant to have been guaranteed when Ukraine surrendered a Soviet-era nuclear \u00adarsenal in 1994, and it proved to be little deterrent when Russia absorbed Crimea in 2014 and then launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. The war has now dragged on for more than three years and killed or wounded more than one million people.German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and UK prime minister Keir Starmer hosted a meeting of allies yesterday to bolster Mr Zelensky\u2019s hand, hoping in particular to lock down robust \u00adsecurity guarantees for Ukraine that would include a US role. The Europeans are keen to help Mr Zelensky avoid a repeat of his last Oval Office meeting in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That went disastrously, with Mr Trump and vice-president JD Vance giving the Ukrainian leader a public dressing-down, accusing him of being ungrateful and disrespectful.<\/p>\n<p>Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin attended the virtual leaders\u2019 meeting of the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Martin, who will not be in Washington, said he had assured Mr Zelensky that Ireland will \u201ccontinue to steadfastly support Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force,\u201d he said. \u201cI fully agree that Ukraine needs strong, credible, long-term security guarantees. This will mean sustained support from Europe, the United States and other partners.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A joint communique released by the UK, France and Germany after the meeting said their leaders were ready \u201cto deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased, and to help secure Ukraine\u2019s skies and seas and regenerate Ukraine\u2019s armed forces\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will also travel to Washington, as will Finland\u2019s president Alexander Stubb, whose access to Mr Trump included rounds of golf in Florida earlier this year, and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who is an admirer of many of Mr Trump\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important that Washington is with us,\u201d Mr Zelensky said alongside Ms von der Leyen on a visit to Brussels, saying the current front lines in the war should be the basis for peace talks. \u201cPutin does not want to stop the killing, but he must do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Setting out red lines, Ms von der Leyen said Ukraine\u2019s allies wanted robust security guarantees for Ukraine, no limits to Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, and a seat at the table with Mr Trump and Putin for Ukraine to discuss its territory.\u201cAs I\u2019ve often said, Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders,\u201d she said.For his part, Putin briefed his close ally, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, about the Alaska talks, and also spoke with Kazakhstan\u2019s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.Mr Trump said on Friday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war because \u201cRussia is a very big power, and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andrew MacAskill, Tom Balmforth and Max Hunder, Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u00a0European leaders will join Volodymyr Zelensky for crunch war talks with Donald Trump in Washington\u00a0 European leaders will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6807,9,10,356,6808,18,6586,5766,13,14,2427,2220,6622,6621,6585,6,19,17,5446,6302,11,12,15,16,5765,6450,5,550,7,8,551,4894,2263,5445],"class_list":{"0":"post-6635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alexander-lukashenko","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-donbas","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-emmanuel-macron","15":"tag-european-commission","16":"tag-featured-news","17":"tag-featurednews","18":"tag-finland","19":"tag-france","20":"tag-friedrich-merz","21":"tag-germany","22":"tag-giorgia-meloni","23":"tag-headlines","24":"tag-ie","25":"tag-ireland","26":"tag-keir-starmer","27":"tag-kyiv","28":"tag-latest-news","29":"tag-latestnews","30":"tag-main-news","31":"tag-mainnews","32":"tag-micheal-martin","33":"tag-nato","34":"tag-news","35":"tag-russia","36":"tag-top-stories","37":"tag-topstories","38":"tag-ukraine","39":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","40":"tag-vladimir-putin","41":"tag-volodymyr-zelensky"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}