Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won diplomatic backing from Europe and the Nato alliance yesterday ahead of a Russia-US summit this week where Kyiv fears Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump may try to dictate terms for ending the 3-1/2-year war.
The leaders of eight Nordic-Baltic nations also jointly reaffirmed their support for Ukraine and said that peace could only come through consistent pressure being put on the Russian federation to halt its ‘unlawful’ war.
Trump, who for weeks had been threatening new sanctions against Russia for failing to halt the war, announced instead on Friday that he would meet Putin on August 15 in Alaska.
A White House official has said Trump is open to Zelenskiy attending but preparations are underway for only a bilateral meeting.
The Kremlin leader last week ruled out meeting Zelenskiy, 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 both (sides)’, compounding Ukrainian fears that it may face pressure to surrender land.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, said a swap could entail Russia handing over 1,500 sq km to Ukraine and obtaining 7,000sqkm, which he said Russia would capture anyway within about six months.
He provided no evidence to back any of those figures.
Zelenskiy says 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 yesterday. “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 today to discuss next steps, she said.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told US network ABC News that Friday’s summit ‘will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end’.
He added: “It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that 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, although it might include de facto recognition. He compared it to the situation after the Second World War 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.
A European official said Europe had come up with a counter-proposal 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 yesterday.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union resembled ‘necrophilia’.
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