PARIS (AP) – Paris is hosting a series of talks Thursday about Ukraine and its security, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, French President Emmanuel Macron and top Ukrainian and European officials.
Rubio and Witkoff were having lunch discussions with Macron and “talks with European counterparts to advance President Trump´s goal to end the Russia-Ukraine war and stop the bloodshed,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
The meetings come as concerns grow about U.S. President Donald Trump´s readiness to draw closer to Russia, and after weeks of U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine. There is also frustration over the Trump administration’s other moves, from tariffs on some of its closest partners to rhetoric about NATO and Greenland.
Witkoff met Thursday with Ukrainian presidential adviser Andrii Yermak and top officials from France, Britain and Germany. Rubio was expected to meet later with the French foreign minister.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the German government´s foreign policy adviser and German Foreign Ministry´s political director were also in Paris for talks Thursday.
Yermak described them as “a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings with representatives of the states of the coalition of the willing that are able to guarantee security.´´
Around 30 countries led by Britain and France have been discussing a possible coalition to police any future peace agreement with Russia. The success of the coalition´s operation hinges on U.S. backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the Trump administration has made no public commitment to provide support.
In Ukraine, a massive drone attack hit the city of Dnipro on Wednesday night, killing three people including a child, the regional leader said. Ukrainian government officials and military analysts have said that Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Kyiv and strengthen the Kremlin´s negotiating position in ceasefire talks.
Rubio and Witkoff have helped lead U.S. efforts to seek peace more than three years after Russia launched the war. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia, and Witkoff met last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has effectively refused to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine´s mobilization efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.
Moscow and Kyiv agreed last month to implement a 30-day halt on strikes on energy facilities, but Russia has kept up daily strikes. Both parties have differed on the start time for stopping strikes and alleged daily breaches by the other side.
At Thursday’s talks in Paris, Macron also plans to discuss the impact of Trump´s tariff policies and the conflicts in the Mideast, ´´in a logic of de-escalation in the region,´´ the French president´s office said.
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