After holding talks in London, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has left for Brussels where he will hold talks with the European Union’s (EU) and Nato’s leaders to shore up support for Ukraine. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to ramp up pressure on Russia.
After holding talks in London, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday left for Brussels where he will hold talks with the European Union’s (EU) and Nato’s leaders to shore up support for Ukraine.
In London,
Zelenskyy held talks with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. In Belgian capital Brussels, he will hold talks with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and Nato chief Mark Rutte.
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Zelenskyy is holding these meetings at a time when
US President Donald Trump is pushing a proposal to end the war on terms favourable to Russia. Zelenskyy is pushing back with European support and is pressing to arrive at a middle ground.
After talks in London, Zelenskyy described the meeting as “productive” and said they had made a “small progress towards peace”. He also referred to discussions earlier in the day with the Trump administration in a post on X.
“Today, we held a detailed discussion on our joint diplomatic work with the American side, aligned a shared position on the importance of security guarantees and reconstruction, and agreed on the next steps,” said Zelenskyy.
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Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy had said that Ukraine and the Trump administration had not yet reached an understanding about Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region that Trump wants Zelenskyy to surrender to Russia in its entirety. The issue of territory is among the most contentious in Trump’s proposal.
Merz ‘sceptical’ as Von der Leyen vows to ramp up pressure
Ahead of the talks with Zelenskyy, Merz said that he was “sceptical” about Trump’s proposal to end the war.
“This could be a decisive time for all of us, so we are trying to continue our support for Ukraine. I am skeptical about some of the details which we are seeing in the documents coming from the US side but we have to talk about that, which is why we are here,” said Merz.
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Separately, Von der Leyen said that the longer Russia would wage war on Ukraine, the longer Russia would be denied its assets.
“The proposal works on the cash balances produced by the immobilised Russian assets. These balances would be used for reparations. So the longer Putin wages his war, spills blood, takes lives, and destroys Ukrainian infrastructure, the higher the costs for Russia will be,” said Von der Leyen.
But Belgium’s refusal to join the proposal has meant that the proposal to use frozen Russian asset has so far not moved beyond discussions. She did not say if the EU had reached an understanding with Belgian government.
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