Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attend a talk of European leaders with the US President on the Ukraine war ahead of the summit between the US and Russian leaders. Photo / John MacDougall, pool, AFP
European leaders today implored United States President Donald Trump to keep one key point in mind when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
They said the US cannot - must not - negotiate away Ukrainian territory, especially for nothing in return.
As Trump floats “land swaps”, Kyiv’s European backers have rejected a Russian proposal to trade Ukrainian land for an undefined truce.
European leaders pressed their priorities in a call with Trump organised by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz today.
They spoke first with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who travelled to Berlin, and then Trump joined.
The call was intended to shape Trump’s thinking before the Alaska summit on Friday local time (Saturday NZT), with the anxious Europeans well aware that Trump in the past has seemed to fall under Putin’s spell.
European leaders emerged heralding the conversation as unifying.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump was “very clear” that he wants to obtain a ceasefire, and he said that Trump agreed that Ukraine should be involved in any talks on territory.
Macron said Trump also assured the Europeans that he would later seek a trilateral summit with Putin and Zelenskyy.
Trump confirmed today that he hoped to arrange a three-way meeting after Alaska, and he praised the call with the Europeans and Zelenskyy.
“I would rate it a 10, you know, very, very friendly,” Trump said during a visit to the Kennedy Centre.
Trump also repeated his claim that the war would not have happened if he had been in office. “This isn’t my war,” he said. “It is what it is, and I’m here to fix it.”
He strongly downplayed expectations that the meeting with Putin would yield an immediate breakthrough.
“There’s a very good chance that we’re going to have a second meeting, which will be more productive than the first, because the first is, I’m going to find out where we are and what we’re doing,” Trump said.
“Certain great things can be gained in the first. It’s going to be a very important meeting, but it’s setting the table for the second meeting,” which he said would include Zelenskyy.
Merz, at a post-call news conference with Zelenskyy, called the European meeting “constructive” and said they were all “very much in agreement”.
He said European leaders insisted on their conditions for any negotiations with Putin, including that “Ukraine must sit at the table” and that a ceasefire must be the starting point.
“There is hope for movement,” Merz said.
Still, he was noncommittal when asked if Trump had agreed to conditions such as providing security guarantees for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy told reporters in Berlin that there was a “very positive, united mood”.
He said he told Trump that Putin was trying to “create the impression that Russia can occupy the whole of Ukraine” to gain the upper hand in negotiations. “That is a bluff,” Zelenskyy said.
The Europeans have insisted that Moscow agree to a ceasefire before negotiations over territory.
If such negotiations occur, a European counter-offer has pushed the idea that any retreat of Ukrainian forces from Ukrainian-controlled territory should be matched on an inch-for-inch basis by Russia’s withdrawal from occupied Ukrainian territory, according to three people briefed on the discussions.
European and Nato allies have often failed to sway Trump’s thinking, or even to be heard by the US President ahead of big policy decisions, such as to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
And they are frequently dismayed by Trump’s policy moves, such as his unilateral imposition of tariffs.
The Europeans recognise that they can only do so much to influence a president who often veers off-script and likes nothing more than to declare a deal.
But on Ukraine they recently have met with some success, for example, by persuading Trump to allow them to transfer US weapons to Ukraine and purchase replacements for themselves.
In recent days, especially after a meeting with Vice-President JD Vance in Britain, they have found the US Administration receptive to some of their red lines.
After that weekend meeting, Vance, in a television interview, endorsed at least one European position - that the current line of contact in eastern Ukraine should be the starting point of any talks - rejecting a Russian demand that Ukraine surrender its entire eastern Donbas area.
Some European officials have expressed guarded optimism, as the Administration has lowered expectations for the summit in Alaska, that Trump would not simply give in to Putin or carve up Ukraine alone.
There appears to be “more of an understanding from the Americans that you can’t just go for land swaps which would somehow give a prize to Russia,” said one European Union official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Still, the official added, “it’s clear that there are sort of discrepancies, and as we’ve seen it in the US system by now, you have one man who will decide”.
Even with Trump making an effort to consult allies, there has been confusion over whether Putin is even willing to swap territory, officials said.
The Administration understood that a partial Russian retreat might be possible after US envoy Steve Witkoff returned from meeting Putin in Moscow last week.
However, the Russian offer apparently calls for a Ukrainian surrender of territory that Russian forces don’t even control as a pre-condition for a ceasefire, the people briefed on the talks said.
The call with Trump caps a flurry of meetings and statements organised by the Europeans to rally around Kyiv since the Alaska summit was announced.
In a post on Truth Social before the call, Trump described European leaders as “great people who want to see a deal done”. The virtual summit hosted by Germany included the leaders of France, Britain, Italy, Poland, Finland, the EU and Nato.
“I have many fears and a lot of hope,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this week. Tusk said that recent comments indicate Trump was increasingly understanding of Ukrainian and European views on the war but that he was not so sure that would hold.
Trump has repeatedly baulked after threatening to pressure Russia into a ceasefire.
As recently as last week, the President’s mounting frustrations with Russia stalling on a ceasefire, and his threats of fresh US sanctions, gave way to his invitation to Putin to meet on US soil.
European leaders, who won’t be in Alaska, have little sway over the diplomatic spectacle, even as they have become Ukraine’s chief military and financial backer.
Most proposals for a truce also envision a role for European nations in enforcing any deal that could reshape the continent’s future security.
In the scramble to sway Trump, European officials have also stressed that any deal must give Ukraine a bulwark against future attacks.
Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte has suggested a deal could involve acknowledging de facto Russian control of some of Ukraine’s regions, without Kyiv officially ceding them.
If Trump’s meeting with Putin advances to “full-scale negotiations,” Rutte said on Monday, territory would “have to be on the table”, as would security guarantees for Ukraine.
Rutte said talks should involve “no limitations” on its military or on Nato’s posture in Eastern Europe.
Freezing the current front lines would leave about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory in Russian hands. Ukraine has little leverage for a land swap, holding a small toehold in Russia’s western Kursk region since a faltering offensive.
“Europeans can say what they want, but in the end, Ukraine and Russia will have to agree,” said a second European official.
“It’s unlikely there’s a peace deal now where Putin says, ‘Okay, I’m going to withdraw from all of Ukraine.’”
The chief diplomat for the 27-nation EU, Kaja Kallas, told the bloc’s foreign ministers last week that the initial contours of a deal between Washington and Moscow had seemed to “focus on territory only” and that “the Ukrainians are very worried”, according to a copy of a written note seen by the Washington Post.
Kallas warned against a “fragile ceasefire” that would solidify Russia’s gains in more than three years of war.
The EU official said they didn’t see “willingness” from Kyiv or many of its staunch European allies for trading territory within Ukraine, citing distrust with Russia, which is pressing its advances in the east.
“We have to understand the Ukrainian position. They have a million men who’ve been fighting for years now, so it’s also something that President Zelenskyy wouldn’t be able to have domestically accepted,” the official said.
Though polls show war-weary Ukrainians increasingly favour a settlement to end the fighting, it would be tough to sell ceding territory - home to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and where forces built up defensive lines over years - for a ceasefire that can’t be guaranteed.
But even as Europe insists that Ukraine must receive security guarantees, its own ideas of what those guarantees would look like remain fuzzy.
Ukraine’s chief backers say guarantees should start with pledges of more weapons and training for its Army and that they will reject any Russian demand to limit Ukraine’s military.
Kyiv’s top aspiration - Nato membership - remains far-fetched, and a plan for European troops in Ukraine remains on a back burner.
Carl Bildt, a former prime minister of Sweden, said European governments can shape the talks as Ukraine’s chief suppliers of arms and cash.
“That blocks the possibility for Trump to make any concessions to Putin on what I think is among the most important of his demands,” to halt the flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, Bildt said.
European leaders also still control billions in Russian frozen assets that will factor into negotiations, as well as the battery of sanctions that Russia wants lifted.
Yet Camille Grand, a former Nato and French defence official, noted the limited European role, from the sidelines of the upcoming talks.
“The Europeans today provide the bulk of humanitarian, economic and military aid and have now accepted to pay for American weapons,” Grand told French public radio.
“While in the negotiations, they can at best hope to influence the American position or to support Ukraine.”
- Catherine Belton, Aaron Wiener, and Michael Birnbaum and Brianna Tucker contributed to this report.