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Nato defense chiefs held a “candid discussion” on Wednesday about what security guarantees they could offer Ukraine – as Russia warned that any talks without its participation were a “road to nowhere”.
Italian admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of Nato’s military committee, said that 32 defence chiefs from across the alliance held a video conference amid a diplomatic push to end the fighting.
He said there was a “great, candid discussion” in the call. “We are united, and that unity was truly tangible today, as always,” he said.
Assurances that it won’t be invaded again in the future are one of the keys for getting Ukraine to sign up for a peace deal with Russia. It wants Western help for its military, including weapons and training, to shore up its defences, and Western officials are scrambling to figure out what commitments they might offer.
But Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed efforts to work on security arrangements in Ukraine without Moscow’s involvement.
“We cannot agree with the fact that it is now proposed to resolve collective security issues without the Russian Federation. This will not work,” he said.
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Firefighters in Odesa tackle the aftermath of overnight attacks by Russia (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
He also criticised the role of European leaders who met Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Monday.
Lavrov said Russia was in favour of “truly reliable” guarantees for Ukraine and suggested these could be modelled on a draft accord that was discussed between the warring parties in Istanbul in 2022, in the early weeks of the war.
At the time, Kyiv rejected that proposal on the grounds that Moscow would have held effective veto power over any military response to come to its aid.
“I am sure that in the West and, above all, in the United States, they understand perfectly well that seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia, it’s a road to nowhere,” Lavrov said.
He accused the European leaders who met Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky of carrying out “a fairly aggressive escalation of the situation, rather clumsy and, in general, unethical attempts to change the position of the Trump administration and the president of the United States personally … We did not hear any constructive ideas from the Europeans there.”
Mr Trump said on Monday that the United States would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal to end Russia’s war there. He subsequently said he had ruled out putting US troops on the ground to do so, but Britain said it is readying its own troops to take part in a European “peace assurance” force.
Russia has repeatedly said that it would not accept Nato troops in Ukraine.
French president Emmanuel Macron has proposed a trilateral summit in Geneva. Putin’s ability to travel abroad is limited because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on a warrant dating back to March 2023, but Switzerland intends to ask the ICC to exempt it from sanctions to allow the Russian leader in for a summit.
Meanwhile, attacks on civilian areas in Sumy and Odesa overnight into Wednesday injured 15 people, including a family with three small children, Ukrainian authorities said. Russian strikes also targeted ports and fuel and energy infrastructure.
Poland’s defence minister accused Russia of again provoking Nato countries after an official said an object that landed in a cornfield may have been a Russian drone.
“Once again, we are dealing with a provocation by the Russian Federation, with a Russian drone,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. “We are dealing in a crucial moment, when discussions about peace are underway.”
Reuters and AP contributed to this report