{"id":351638,"date":"2025-08-17T12:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/351638\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T12:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:46:10","slug":"european-leaders-including-starmer-to-join-zelenskyy-in-washington-for-meeting-with-trump-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/351638\/","title":{"rendered":"European leaders including Starmer to join Zelenskyy in Washington for meeting with Trump | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

European leaders including Britain\u2019s Keir Starmer will join Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a White House meeting on Monday with Donald Trump, in a coordinated effort to push back on a US-endorsed \u201cpeace plan\u201d that would allow Russia to take further Ukrainian territory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Germany\u2019s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, and Italy\u2019s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will all accompany Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe talks will address, among other things, security guarantees, territorial issues, and continued support for Ukraine<\/a> in its defence against Russian aggression. This includes maintaining pressure on sanctions,\u201d Germany\u2019s government said.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the trip was to achieve a \u201cfair and lasting peace that safeguards Ukraine\u2019s vital interests and Europe\u2019s security\u201d, the French presidency added.<\/p>\n

A video call organised by the UK, France and Germany is due to take place on Sunday with other European allies. It follows reports that Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia<\/a> to secure an end to the war between the two countries.<\/p>\n

Trump told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if Zelenskyy agreed to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in more than three years of fighting, the New York Times reported<\/a>, citing two senior European officials.<\/p>\n

Ukraine map<\/a><\/p>\n

Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline.<\/p>\n

Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

Putin told Trump that in exchange for Donetsk and Luhansk he would halt further advances and freeze the frontline in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces occupy significant areas.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s support for ceding Ukraine\u2019s Donbas region, which is rich in mineral resources including coal and iron ore, to Russia came as he voiced support for moving straight to a peace deal and not via a ceasefire, which, Trump said in a social media post<\/a> on Saturday, \u201coften times do not hold up\u201d.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump greets Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque\/Reuters<\/p>\n

US support for ceding the Donbas to Russia represents a breach with Ukraine and European allies that oppose such a deal. According to Reuters<\/a>, Russia is demanding 6,600 sq km of Donbas, while offering to withdraw from 440 sq km in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.<\/p>\n

As part of a deal, the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, Merz said on Saturday. Trump has threatened economic penalties on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow refuses a deal, and flew US bombers over the Russian leader as he arrived in Alaska.<\/p>\n

But Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, the former British defence secretary Ben Wallace said he was \u201cnot very optimistic\u201d that Monday\u2019s Oval Office talks would lead to peace. He said he hoped the \u201cunedifying pincer movement\u201d \u2013 when Trump and the US vice-president, JD Vance, attacked Zelenskyy during their previous meeting in February \u2013 would not be repeated.<\/p>\n

Wallace said Trump\u2019s apparent endorsement of Putin\u2019s territorial demands amounted to 1930s-style \u201cappeasement\u201d. He said the strategy \u2013 with pressure piled on Ukraine to agree \u2013 may save lives \u201cin the short term\u201d but in the long term \u201cwould probably put us at greater risk\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump claimed on Saturday in his post that \u201cit was determined by all\u201d that it was better to go directly to negotiated a peace agreement, though European leaders indicated this was not their view.<\/p>\n

A joint statement<\/a> issued by European leaders said they were \u201cready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support\u201d but \u201cit will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said they welcomed \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia\u2019s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, the French foreign minister, Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, and the France defence minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu, attend a video conference with Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, last week. Photograph: Philippe Magoni\/EPA<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said in a statement<\/a> after his conversations with Trump and the European leaders: \u201cThe positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions. Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a later statement on social media on Saturday he added that the move to go directly to a peace agreement without a ceasefire first \u201ccomplicates the situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

If Moscow lacks \u201cthe will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater \u2013 peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via a video call before his meeting with Trump, the French president\u2019s office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Olga Tokariuk, a fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, said Zelenskyy had a \u201cdifficult task\u201d in Washington. He had to \u201cdemonstrate that Ukraine wants peace, but not at any cost, to ensure Ukraine still gets US support,\u201d she said. At the same time he could not make concessions \u201cunacceptable for Ukrainians\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump was unlikely to treat Zelenskyy with the \u201csame friendliness as Putin\u201d, she predicted. \u201cThe US under Trump is no longer willing to stand by its democratic allies, while instead it is embracing the tyrants,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders including Britain\u2019s Keir Starmer will join Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a White House meeting on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-351638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115044180826022800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}