The European Union remains wedded to its maximalist total Ukrainian victory position and warned “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine” as President Donald Trump prepares for in-person talks with President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Opinions abound as the days count down to President Trump giving Russia’s Putin what he’s suggested may be a final chance to end the war. That Ukraine itself is not yet slated to be present at the bilateral talks is a matter of particular anxiety, with Kyiv and Brussels both objecting to the validity of decisions made without their being in the room.
President Trump has already said he anticipates there will have to be some “land swapping going on” to achieve peace. However, the European Union has previously said it emphatically rejects such a proposal, and continued to assert the position this week.
In a joint statement signed by all Union member states but one — Viktor Orban’s Hungary dissented — the bloc said on Tuesday that while they “welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia’s war of aggression”, the EU insists “a just and lasting peace that brings stability and security must respect international law”.
This means “international borders must not be changed by force” — absolutely ruling out any land swaps — and that “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine”. The bloc stressed “the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny and will continue supporting Ukraine on its path towards EU membership.”
Yet it isn’t European Union membership that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is reported to have his eye on. Britain’s The Daily Telegraph claims knowledge of a “frantic weekend of diplomacy between Kyiv and its allies” and that Ukraine is privately willing to cede territory already held by Russia in order to achieve peace. “This would mean freezing the front line where it is and handing Russia de facto control of the territory it occupies in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea,” the paper reported.
The price of being willing to go to such lengths is NATO membership, the paper states. This isn’t exactly fresh news: Trump envoy General Keith Kellogg came out of meetings with Zelensky in May to say the country would be willing to “de facto” concede legally Ukrainian land held by Russia in order to find peace. President Zelensky has also been totally clear about the indispensability of NATO membership in his estimation, even if the United States remains extremely cagey about the idea, given that it would essentially establish a new nuclear tripwire in eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, these ideas are at odds with Ukraine’s official position as of today, which remains aligned with the EU ideal of a total victory over Russia. Overnight, President Zelensky himself set out that position in his nightly address to the nation, saying of the coming talks: “First – Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. Second, issues concerning the war against Ukraine must be resolved only with Ukraine’s participation. Third, Russia must take the necessary steps to end this war…At all levels, we continue to engage with the United States of America.”
Zelensky further warned that despite all the talk of peace, he assesses that Russia has no interest in peace whatsoever, saying the country “has not taken a single step” towards ending the war. The Ukrainian President said, “He is definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war.”
“Putin is determined only to present a meeting with America as his personal victory and then continue acting exactly as before, applying the same pressure on Ukraine as before… On the contrary, [Russia is] redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations. If someone is preparing for peace, this is not what he does,” Zelensky added.
As previously reported, President Trump confirmed last week he would be meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin this coming Friday in Alaska, the U.S. state purchased from the then-Russian Empire in 1867. The summit will be the first time a Russian President has visited Alaska and the first time Putin himself will have set foot on American soil in a decade.
President Trump said that he expects the sit-down with Putin to be a “feel-out meeting” and that “probably in the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made”.
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