EU foreign ministers on Monday are to discuss a Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meeting in Alaska later this week.
The ministers are set to meet via video link, with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha also planning to join.
Trump and Putin will meet on Friday, but the EU has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any arrangement to end the war that began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Over the weekend, European leaders pushed for Ukraine’s involvement in the talks, amid fears that a meeting without Kyiv could see if forced to cede swaths of territory.
“The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine,” leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Finland and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement, urging Trump to put more pressure on Russia.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday he hoped and assumed that Zelenskyy would attend the Alaska summit.
Leaders of the Nordic and Baltic countries — Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden — also said no decisions should be taken without Ukrainian involvement.
Talks on ending the war could only take place during a ceasefire, they added in a joint statement.
“The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. 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,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said.
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance said Washington is working on arranging a meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy.
“We’re at a point now where we’re trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,” Vance said during an interview on Fox News.
