With high-level meetings lined up about the war in Ukraine, this could be the most consequential week for Europe this year as it works to shape US President Donald Trump’s Russia-friendly proposal into a respectable arrangement.
With high-level meetings lined up with Ukrainian and American officials, this could be the most consequential week for European leaders as they are working to reshape US President Donald Trump’s Russia-friendly proposal into a respectable arrangement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be joined in Berlin on Monday by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and possibly French President Emmanuel Macron, in discussions with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law.
These talks will be a continuation of Sunday’s talks between Zelenskyy and Trump’s envoys.
Monday’s talks will be followed up by at least two more rounds of talks among European leaders that will be the clearest test of their ability of match their words about supporting Ukraine with actions. At the top of the agenda are figuring out the modalities of a €210 billion loan from frozen Russian assets for Ukraine and firming up security guarantees for the enforcement of any peace deal.
As per latest reports, Ukraine is willing to drop the demand to join Nato for collective defence-type security guarantees. But there is still no consensus about the thorniest issue of Ukraine’s Donbas region that Trump wants to be ceded to Russia — in line with Vladimir Putin’s longstanding maximalist demands.
European leaders to meet to see if they can match words with actions
While British and German leaders will join Zelenskyy in the meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, European Union (EU) foreign ministers and diplomats will convene in Brussels to convince member-states that oppose the loan programme, according to Politico.
After these meetings, all 27 EU leaders will convene in Brussels for talks that would decide whether Europe can actually do something or they are indeed ‘all talk’ as Trump put it, as per the outlet.
Ahead of these meetings, Nato chief Mark Rutte set the tone about the stakes by comparing Putin’s threat to that posed by Adolf Hitler in the previous century.
“We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way. Russia has brought war back to Europe and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured,” said Rutte.
So far, Trump and Europe have been poles apart in their positions. While Trump has stressed Ukraine must first make territorial concessions on Putin’s terms to secure a ceasefire, Europe has pushed back that there could be no territorial concessions until security guarantees are finalised.
But there are signs that there has been some progress in talks. Zelenskyy on Sunday said that he was willing to “compromise” and not demand Nato membership for Ukraine if the country were provided a separate collective defense arrangement.
“The bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the United States … and the security guarantees from our European colleagues for us, as well as from other countries such as Canada and Japan ― these security guarantees for us provide an opportunity to prevent another outbreak of Russian aggression,” said Zelenskyy.
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