Keystone-SDA
Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders will address Donald Trump on Wednesday, “upset” by the refusal of his Ukrainian counterpart to give in territories, to weigh on his meeting with Vladimir Putin, fearing an agreement at the expense of Ukraine.
(Keystone-ATS) Before the Alaska summit, scheduled for Friday and of which the American president declared on Monday at the White House to expect it to be “constructive”, Europeans strive to make a common front and redoubled diplomatic activity.
On Monday afternoon, Germany announced that Chancellor Friedrich Merz had “invited” the leaders of European countries-France, United Kingdom, Italy, Poland and Finland-and the EU, those of Ukraine and NATO but also Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance to “discussions” by videoconference on Wednesday.
Organized by “thematic groups”, they will relate to possible “additional actions” to “exert pressure on Russia” but also on “the preparation of possible peace negotiations” and the questions “relating to territorial claims and security guarantees” which result from it, continued Berlin.
The French presidency subsequently specified that this initiative had been taken in common by the French head of state Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mr. Merz.
According to the Bild newspaper, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Europeans and the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance Mark Rutte will first meet without the Americans, before communicating the results of their consultations in a second.
“Territorial exchanges”
The foreign ministers of the member states of the European Union are already found emergency Monday to avoid an agreement between Washington and Moscow to the detriment of Ukraine.
In Alaska, according to the American president, a possible agreement providing for “territorial exchanges”, according to the American president, must be discussed to end the conflict launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
As it stands, the presence of Volodymyr Zelensky is not scheduled, even if the United States does not exclude it.
Mr. Zelensky once again called not to give in to the requirements of Vladimir Putin.
“Russia refuses to stop the massacres and must therefore not receive rewards or advantages. And it is not only a moral position, it is a rational position, “wrote the Ukrainian president on Facebook.
For the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, any agreement between the United States and Russia “must include Ukraine and the EU” because “it is a question of security for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe”.
Russian push
The Ukrainian Head of State, who has spoke in recent days with a dozen European leaders, stressed that kyiv worked “of course” with the United States.
Vladimir Putin for his part conversed with nine heads of state or government in three days including Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Inacio Lula da Silva.
Donald Trump, who had promised to settle the Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours on his return to the White House, started a spectacular rapprochement with the Russian president. But he has shown growing frustration, Russia having intensified its Ukraine bombings in recent months.
The announcement of the Alaska summit intervened on Friday, the same day of the expiration of an ultimatum launched at the Kremlin to put an end to the worst armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War.
Moscow checks 20% of Ukraine
The clashes have since continued with six dead identified in Russian strikes on Sunday in Ukraine.
Twenty people were also injured when a Russian planing bomb reached, on the same day, the highly frequented central bus station of Zaporijjia (East).
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Monday taking a new village in the Ukrainian Donetsk (East) region, that of Fedorivka, located northeast of Pokrovsk and Myrnograd, cities threatened with encirclement due to the continuous advance of Russian troops in this sector for more than a month.
The Russian army currently controls approximately 20% of the Ukrainian territory.
Moscow claims that Ukraine gives him four partially occupied regions (Donetsk, Lougansk, Zaporijjia and Kherson), in addition to the Crimea annexed in 2014, and that it renounces Western arms deliveries and any membership in NATO. Unacceptable requirements for kyiv.
