European Leaders to Attend Meeting in White House

A number of European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, have confirmed they will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a meeting at the White House, reports BBC.

Other leaders include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Zelensky is heading to Washington on Monday for talks with US President Donald Trump.

This follows Friday's summit in Alaska where Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were unable to reach a deal on ending the Ukraine war.

The US president has said he wants to bypass a ceasefire in Ukraine, in favour of a permanent peace agreement.

Meanwhile, Macron, Merz and Starmer will host a virtual meeting on Sunday with Zelensky and other allies on the Ukraine war.

According to the New York Times, Trump is likely to present Zelensky with a proposal for a deal with Russia. The proposal would require Kiev to accept the territories in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas that Russia has passed a bill to annex. It would also require Moscow to recognize the territories in Donbas that are still under Ukrainian control but that Russia has declared as its own.

The report says that if Ukraine accepts these conditions, Russia will stop the ongoing conflict on other borders.

But in the meantime, Zelensky has repeatedly said that no territory will be given to Russia. All lost territory will be restored.

After Trump and Putin’s Alaska meeting, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Poland and the European Union (EU) issued a joint statement. In it, they expressed their “readiness to hold a trilateral summit with President Trump and Zelensky in cooperation with Europe.”

After the Alaska meeting, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Russia and the United States had not yet discussed a possible meeting between Putin, Trump, and Zelensky.