Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won diplomatic backing from Europe and the Nato alliance on Sunday ahead of a Russia-US summit this week where Kyiv fears Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump may try to dictate terms for ending the war.
Trump, who for weeks had been threatening new sanctions against Russia for failing to halt the war, announced instead on Friday he would meet Putin on August 15 in Alaska.
A White House official said Trump is open to Zelensky attending but preparations are under way for only a bilateral meeting.
Russian strikes injured at least 12 people in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, the country's foreign affairs ministry said on Sunday.
Responding to the strike, Zelensky said: “That is why sanctions are needed, pressure is needed.”
The Kremlin leader last week ruled out meeting Zelensky, saying conditions for such an encounter were “unfortunately still far” from being met.
Trump said a potential deal would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of the two (sides)", compounding Ukrainian fears that it may face pressure to surrender land.
Zelensky said any decisions taken without Ukraine will be “stillborn” and unworkable. On Saturday the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said any diplomatic solution must protect the security interests of Ukraine and Europe.
“The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday.
“Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security.”
EU foreign ministers will meet on Monday to discuss next steps, she said.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte told US network ABC News Friday's summit “will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing the terrible war to an end”.
He said: “It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future.”
Russia holds nearly a fifth of the country.
Rutte said a deal could not include legal recognition of Russian control over Ukrainian land, though it might include de facto recognition. He compared it to the situation after World War 2 when Washington accepted that the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were de facto controlled by the Soviet Union but did not legally recognise their annexation.
Zelensky said on Sunday: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today.”
A European official said Europe had come up with a counterproposal to Trump's, but declined to provide details. Russian officials accused Europe of trying to thwart Trump's efforts to end the war.
“The euro-imbeciles are trying to prevent American efforts to help resolve the Ukrainian conflict,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on social media on Sunday.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the EU resembled “necrophilia”.
Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, said Europe had been reduced to the role of a spectator.
“If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv even more so,” he said.
In addition to Crimea, which it seized in 2014, Russia has formally claimed the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as its own, though it controls only about 70% of the last three. It holds smaller pieces of territory in three other regions, while Ukraine said it holds a sliver of Russia's Kursk region.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, said a swap could entail Russia handing over 1,500km² to Ukraine and obtaining 7,000km², which he said Russia would capture within about six months.
He provided no evidence to back any of the figures. Russia took about 500km² of territory in July, according to Western military analysts who said its grinding advances have come at the cost of very high casualties.
Ukraine and its European allies have been haunted for months by the fear that Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and hoping to seal lucrative joint business deals between the US and Russia, could align with Putin to cut a deal that would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv.
They had drawn some encouragement lately as Trump, having piled heavy pressure on Zelensky and berated him publicly in the Oval Office in February, began criticising Putin as Russia pounded Kyiv and other cities with its heaviest air attacks of the war.
However, the impending Putin-Trump summit has revived fears that Kyiv and Europe could be sidelined.
“What we will see emerge from Alaska will almost certainly be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe,” wrote Phillips P O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
“Ukraine will face the most terrible dilemma. Do they accept this humiliating and destructive deal? Or do they go it alone, unsure of the backing of European states?”
Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said on Sunday Kyiv's partnership with its European allies was critical to countering any attempts to keep it away from the table.
“For us a joint position with the Europeans is our main resource,” he said on Ukrainian radio.
US vice-president JD Vance said a negotiated settlement was unlikely to satisfy either side. “The Russians and the Ukrainians, probably at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it,” he said on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.
Reuters
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