President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday called on Ukraine’s allies to quickly move discussions on security guarantees to direct talks between national leaders. His appeal came as European Union defence ministers said they would be ready to train Ukrainian forces inside the country if a truce is reached.
Kyiv is engaged in a diplomatic push to try and bring to an end Russia’s war, now in its fourth year, and to secure critical commitments from its partners to fend off any future invasion.
The Ukrainian president said he expected to continue talks with European leaders next week on “NATO-like” commitments to protect Ukraine, adding that U.S. President Donald Trump should also be involved.
“We need the architecture to be clear to everyone,” he said, adding that he wanted to tell Trump “how we see it”.
Zelenskyy spoke shortly before his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, met U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in New York to discuss the need to increase pressure on Moscow.
‘War Must End’
A senior U.S. official said the Ukrainians invited Witkoff to visit Ukraine. The official said the meeting gave Witkoff the opportunity to stress that Ukraine and Russia should meet to reach an end to the war.
In comments posted online later, Yermak said he described to Witkoff the aftermath of the mass Russian attack on Kyiv on Thursday that killed 25 people. The strike, he said, showed that Russia “is not even showing any willingness to end the war”.
“This means we must continue to apply pressure and discuss what the next steps are,” Yermak said.
“We also talked about working with American and European partners on security guarantees. This is very important. Without them, it is impossible to look forward.”
Ukrainian officials say Russia, which has continued attacking cities with missiles and drones and is pressing a battlefield offensive, has no interest in seeking peace.
Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale invasion have so far yielded little, even after Trump met separately with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders earlier this month.
Zelenskyy also raised Trump’s self-imposed deadline for deciding on new measures against Russia if President Vladimir Putin fails to commit to a one-on-one meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
“Two weeks will be on Monday. And we will remind everybody,” he said.
Russia has said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Putin and Zelenskyy.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, also visiting New York, was expected to meet U.S. business representatives to discuss investments in Ukraine, Zelenskyy added.
Officials in Kyiv see U.S. funding, particularly as part of a critical minerals deal struck earlier this year, as central to securing a durable peace settlement.
EU Support
European Union defence ministers meeting in Copenhagen on Friday expressed “broad support” for expanding the bloc’s military training mission to operate inside Ukraine, the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said.
Trump, who has in recent weeks appeared more willing to support Kyiv’s defence against Russia, has said Europe must provide the lion’s share of any effort to bolster Ukraine’s security.
“The EU has already trained over 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” Kallas wrote on X. “We must be ready to do more.”
Russia has consistently opposed the presence of any NATO troops in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said he wanted allies to ratify any security guarantees through their parliaments, invoking a 1994 deal in which Kyiv gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances that proved insufficient to deter Russia.
“We want legally binding security guarantees. We don’t want (another) Budapest Memorandum.”
Germany and France on Friday outlined plans to cooperate more deeply on security, including a missile early-warning system, following a meeting between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron.
(With inputs from Reuters)
