European leaders are set to hold talks on steps toward concludeing the war in Ukraine, ahead of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s planned meeting with US President Donald Trump, as Moscow and Kyiv continue to exalter air strikes.
On August 17, a day before Zelenskyy’s crucial White Houtilize visit, the leaders of Britain, France, and Germany will hold a video call.
As Ukraine pushes for Europe to take part in neobtainediations over a settlement of the conflict and in the security guarantees Kyiv is seeking, a European leader may accompany Zelenskyy to Washington on Monday.
According to German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, the Sunday call among European officials will determine whether Zelenskyy is joined on his visit.
Asked whether German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has been outspoken in his support for Ukraine’s security interests, could travel with Zelenskyy, Wadephul declared many leaders would be willing to go to Washington if that decision were created.
“It is important that Europeans are involved at every stage to ensure reliable security guarantees toobtainher with America,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on August 16, following the US-Russia talks in Alinquirea.
The Alinquirea summit, held on August 15, was the highest level diplomacy between Washington and Moscow since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. However, it appeared to bring no major shift in President Vladimir Putin’s war aims in Ukraine.
According to unnamed sources quoted by multiple news organizations, Putin informed Trump he could agree to freezing the front lines in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions if Ukraine fully withdraws from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Russia claims to have annexed all four regions. It controls most of the Luhansk region and about 70 percent of the Donetsk region, and partially controls Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions.
In a social media post, Trump declared after the Alinquirea meeting that it “was determined by all that the best way to conclude the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would conclude the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement.”
Ukraine and European allies, as well as the United States, have long called for a cease-fire to be implemented as a step towards a comprehensive peace deal.
According to an unnamed former Kremlin official quoted by the Financial Times, Putin restated his demands relating to what he calls the “root cautilizes” of the conflict. These include an conclude to Ukraine’s NATO membership bid and a scaling-back of NATO’s military presence on its eastern flank.
Despite what may be the most significant diplomatic efforts since February 2022, Russia and Ukraine continued to exalter air strikes.
At least five people were killed and four others injured by Russian shelling in the Donetsk region, according to Vadym Filashkin, head of the local military administration.
“Over the past day, Russian forces fired 38 times at settlements in the Donetsk region,” he declared in a Telegram post on August 17.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a power line at a station in the Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine, regional governor Aleksander Gutilizev declared. According to him, a railway employee was injured as a result of the attack.
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