By Andrew MacAskill, Tom Balmforth and Andreas Rinke
LONDON/BERLIN (Reuters) -The leaders of France, Germany and Britain will try to shore up Ukraine’s position on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy prepares to meet Donald Trump in Washington with the U.S. leader pressing Kyiv to accept a deal to end the war.
President Trump is leaning on Ukraine to strike an agreement after meeting Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska where, according to sources, the Russian president offered to relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine in exchange for vast swathes elsewhere.
At face value, some of Putin’s demands would be hugely difficult for Ukraine to accept, setting the stage for potentially fraught talks about ending Europe’s deadliest war in 80 years, which has killed or wounded more than 1 million people.
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will host a virtual meeting of the “coalition of the willing” – a grouping of allies of Kyiv – from 1300 GMT.
European powers want to help set up a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskiy to make sure Ukraine has a seat at the table to shape its future.
They also want robust security guarantees for Ukraine with U.S. involvement, and the ability to crank up pressure on Moscow if needed.
“They will spell out what they consider essential in terms of security guarantees: what they can do themselves, what falls to the coalition of volunteers, and also what they expect from the United States,” a European government official said. “Indeed, they expect a very robust commitment.”
One or more of the European leaders could also accompany Zelenskiy when he flies to Washington on Monday for his meeting with Trump.
Trump said on Saturday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war with Russia because “Russia is a very big power, and they’re not”.
After the Alaska summit with Putin, Trump phoned Zelenskiy and told him that the Kremlin chief had offered to freeze most front lines if Kyiv ceded all of Donetsk, the industrial region that is one of Moscow’s main targets, a source familiar with the matter said.
Zelenskiy rejected the demand, the source said. Russia already controls a fifth of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk province, which it first entered in 2014.
Trump also said he agreed with Putin that a peace deal should be sought without the prior ceasefire that Ukraine and its European allies have called for. That was a reversal of his position before the summit, when he said he would not be happy unless a ceasefire was agreed on.
Zelenskiy said Russia’s unwillingness to pause the fighting would complicate efforts to forge a lasting peace. “Stopping the killing is a key element of stopping the war,” he said on X.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with 60 drones and one ballistic missile. It said it downed or jammed 40 of the drones.
PREPARING FOR OVAL OFFICE MEETING
Zelenskiy’s last Oval Office meeting, in February, went disastrously, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance giving the Ukrainian leader a strong public dressing-down.
Merz said he did not think Zelenskiy would face as difficult a time this time around, adding that Zelenskiy would talk on Sunday to European leaders who would help him prepare for the meeting.
“We’ll give a few good pieces of advice,” he told German broadcaster n-tv.
Merz told ZDF that while it was important that Europe stand united, the U.S. would for the time being continue to play the decisive role in the war.
“The American president has the power both militarily and via appropriate sanctions and tariffs to ensure that Russia moves more than it currently does,” he said.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has been gradually advancing for months.
In his statement after the Alaska summit, Putin signalled no movement in Russia’s long-held demands, which also include a veto on Kyiv’s desired membership in the NATO alliance.
Mark Lyall Grant, Britain’s national security adviser during part of Trump’s first term, said the summit was a “clear win” for Putin because Trump dropped his previous call for an immediate ceasefire.
However, he added that it was positive that there appeared to be some willingness from the U.S. to be involved in offering some security guarantees for Ukraine.
“That is absolutely critical because apart from the issues of land swaps, which is a very complicated issue, the most important longer-term issue is the security guarantees for what is left of Ukraine, so Putin doesn’t do what he normally does, which is have a time to rearm and come back for more at a later stage,” he told Reuters.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Tom Balmforth, Andreas Rinke, Layli Foroudi, Max HunderWriting by Matthias WilliamsEditing by Frances Kerry)
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