Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders made a final push on Wednesday to convince U.S. President Donald Trump not to agree to a Ukraine peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning it could undermine Kyiv’s interests.
Trump and Putin are due to meet in Alaska on Friday for talks on how to end the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict, the biggest in Europe since World War Two. Trump has said both sides will have to swap territory to end the fighting, which has cost tens of thousands of lives.
In a day of intense diplomacy, Zelenskyy flew into Berlin for German-hosted virtual meetings with European leaders and Trump. The Europeans are worried that a land swap could leave Russia with almost a fifth of Ukraine and embolden Putin to expand further west in the future.
Since announcing the Alaska summit, Trump has played down expectations for the talks, saying it would be a “feel-out” meeting as he seeks to end Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
In a first video conference on Wednesday, Zelenskyy and his host, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, met the leaders of Finland, France, Britain, Italy, Poland and the European Union as well as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to discuss their pitch to Trump and try and shape the outcome of Friday’s summit.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance later joined the conversation, according to a source familiar with the situation.
“Will be speaking to European Leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Alaska Deal
The unpredictability of the summit in Alaska has fuelled Europeans’ fears that the U.S. and Russia could take far-reaching decisions over their heads and even seek to coerce Ukraine into an unfavourable deal.
“We are focusing now to ensure that it does not happen – engaging with U.S. partners and staying coordinated and united on the European side,” said one senior official from Eastern Europe.
Wary of angering Trump, European leaders have repeatedly said they welcome his efforts while stressing that there should be no deal about Ukraine without Ukraine’s participation.
Trump’s administration tempered expectations on Tuesday, telling reporters the summit would be a “listening exercise” for him to hear what it would take to get to a deal.
Trump’s agreement last week to the summit was an abrupt shift after weeks of voicing frustration with Putin for resisting the U.S. peace initiative. Trump said his envoy had made “great progress” at talks in Moscow.
Half a dozen senior European officials said that they see a risk of a deal being struck that is unfavourable for Europe and Ukraine’s security. They said European unity would be vital if that happened.
After the meeting with Trump, the “coalition of the willing”, a group of countries working on plans to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, will also convene online.
Battlefield Pressure Mounts On Ukraine
A Gallup poll released last week found that 69% of Ukrainians favour a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible. But polls also indicate Ukrainians do not want peace at any cost if that means crushing concessions.
Ahead of the calls, Zelenskyy said it would be impossible for Kyiv to agree to a deal that would require it to withdraw its troops from the eastern Donbas region, a large swathe of which is already occupied by Russia.
That, he told reporters on Tuesday, would deprive Ukraine of a vast defensive network in the region, easing the way for a Russian push deeper into Ukraine in the future.
He said territorial issues could only be discussed once a ceasefire was in place and Ukraine had received security guarantees.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexei Fadeev said Moscow’s stance had not changed since it was set out by Putin in June 2024.
As preconditions for a ceasefire and the start of negotiations, the Kremlin leader had demanded that Ukraine withdraw its forces from four regions that Russia has claimed as its own but does not fully control, and formally renounce its plans to join NATO.
Kyiv swiftly rejected the conditions as tantamount to surrender.
(With inputs from Reuters)
