PARIS: Ukraine’s allies were meeting on Tuesday (Aug 19) to discuss the outcome of fast-moving talks to end the war with Russia, after indications that Volodymyr Zelenskyy could sit down with Vladimir Putin for a peace summit.
Hopes of a breakthrough rose when the Ukrainian president and European leaders met US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, who said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart.
The Ukraine war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has ground to a virtual stalemate despite a few recent Russian advances, defying Trump’s push to end it.
A face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin would be their first since Russia’s brutal invasion nearly three-and-a-half years ago.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in Washington for the talks on the key issue of long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, said France and Britain would hold a meeting on Tuesday with around 30 of Kyiv’s allies.
The virtual meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” would “keep them up to date on what was decided”, Macron told French news channel LCI. “Right after that, we’ll start concrete work with the Americans.”
Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are co-hosting the meeting, which will “discuss next steps” for Ukraine, a UK government spokesperson told AFP, as Kyiv seeks backing from allies to enforce any peace deal.
Macron suggested Geneva could host peace talks, but said it was “up to Ukraine” to decide whether to make concessions on territory, including parts of the eastern Donbas region still under its control.
“Putin has rarely honoured his commitments,” he added, calling the Russian leader a “predator, an ogre at our gates” – comments that underscored wider European wariness.
Putin “has constantly been a force for destabilisation. He has sought to redraw borders to increase his power”, Macron said.
OPEN TO TALKS
Trump, who last week held talks with Putin in Alaska, wrote on his Truth Social network after Monday’s meetings that “everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine”.
“At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” he added.
Trump said he would then hold a three-way summit with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was part of the European delegation, said Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting within the next two weeks.
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