Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Berlin on Wednesday for a virtual meeting hosted by Germany with Donald Trump and European leaders, two days before the US president is scheduled to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Before the virtual meeting with Trump, Zelensky met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The meeting with the Republican was also attended by the leaders of Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland, as well as representatives of NATO and the European Union.
Speaking after the meeting, his first with Trump since Friday's summit was announced, Zelensky said he hoped the"ceasefire" would be the "main topic" of the Alaska talks and called for "more sanctions against Russia." The Ukrainian leader insisted that a three-way summit should be held. Merz, who organized Wednesday's meeting, asserted that there was"hope" for peace in Ukraine and noted that "a ceasefire must precede any agreement." The two men agreed that in their conversation with the US president, they made it clear that the security interests of Europe and Ukraine must be defended in Alaska."We made this clear to Trump," said Merz, who specified that there had been no serious talks about territory swaps, but that both wanted Trump to succeed in Alaska.
"I told the US president and all our European colleagues that Putin is bluffing" about his desire to end the war, Zelensky shared at his joint press conference in Berlin with Merz. Regarding the advances of the invading troops in Ukraine, the Ukrainian leader believes that the Russian president is trying to exert pressure on the entire Ukrainian front ahead of the meeting in Alaska."Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine," said Zelensky, convinced that the allies are positive and united ahead of the talks on Alaska.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron indicated that nothing is off the table regarding a new sanctions package against Russia. Macron agreed with his European colleagues that the territorial issue can only be negotiated with Ukraine, and asserted that President Trump had said he wanted to obtain a ceasefire in Ukraine during the meeting with Putin."Trump wants Ukraine to have a say in the territorial negotiations with Russia," the French leader asserted. For his part, Merz noted that the debate on the types of guarantees should begin as soon as peace is achieved, and he told Putin as much during the conversation.
When it came to assessing his meeting with European leaders and Zelensky, Trump said:"I give it a 10." The US president even congratulated Germany for stepping up once again. As for his plans for his meeting with Putin, Trump said that he wants to have a second meeting with Putin almost immediately if the first meeting goes well."I would like to do that almost immediately, and we will have a quick second meeting between President Putin, President Zelensky and myself, if they would like me to be there, and that would be a meeting where maybe we could absolutely resolve [it], but... great things can be accomplished in the first [meeting], it will be a very important meeting, but the groundwork is being laid for the second meeting," he told reporters at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Although he later qualified:"There may not be a second meeting if I feel that it is not appropriate to have it because I did not get the answers that we should have."
A reporter asked him if there would be consequences for Putin if he doesn't agree to end the war after Friday's meeting. Trump replied,"Yes, there will be very severe consequences." Trump also admitted that he could ask Putin whether Russia is at least partially responsible for the recent hacking of the computer system that handles court documents.
The US president announced last week that he would meet with Putin on Friday in Alaska to negotiate an end to the three-and-a-half-year war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. Little is known about what will be on the table. Trump has said the Alaska talks will be a"testing" meeting in his search for a ceasefire in Moscow's war against Ukraine."I will be speaking with the European leaders shortly. They are exceptional people who want to get a deal done," the US president said shortly before joining today's meeting.
Ukraine is ready to consider an air truce with Russia, Mikhail Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. According to Podolyak, Washington proposed a complete ceasefire, including a halt to missile and drone attacks. Russia has not yet agreed to any of these scenarios.
Ukraine and its European allies fear that Trump, eager to take credit for achieving peace and ending tensions with Moscow, could side with Putin to reach a deal that would leave kyiv vulnerable to an even deeper invasion. Following the meeting with Trump, the"Coalition of the Willing," a group of countries working on various plans to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, will also hold talks.
Last week, to the consternation of Kyiv and Brussels, Trump claimed that any deal would involve"some territory swapping." "Our focus now is on making sure that doesn't happen by working with our U.S. partners and staying coordinated and united on the European side. There's still plenty of time until Friday," a senior Eastern European official told Reuters. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that the summit would be a"listening exercise" for Trump to understand what it will take to reach a deal.
Zelensky has indicated that he will not accept a deal that would force him to withdraw his troops from the eastern Donbas region, which is not occupied by Russia. That would deprive Ukraine of a vast defensive network in the region, paving the way for a deeper Russian offensive into Ukraine in the future. A Gallup poll released last week found that 69% of Ukrainians favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible. But the polls also indicate that Ukrainians do not want peace at any price.
Trump took to social media to criticize the media for its"unfair" coverage of his upcoming meeting with Putin: "Very unfair media (...) constantly quoting fired losers and really naive people like John Bolton, who just said that even though the meeting is on American soil, 'Putin has already won,'" the US leader claimed, adding that"these are sick, dishonest people who probably hate our Country. But it doesn't matter because we are winning everywhere!"
Meanwhile, Russia insists its maximalist conditions for ending the war remain unchanged."Russia's position remains unchanged and was expressed in this very room just over a year ago, on June 14, 2024," Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Alexei Fadeev said, referring to a speech Putin gave at the ministry headquarters at the time, demanding"a complete withdrawal of Kyiv's forces from key regions of Ukraine and the abandonment of its NATO ambitions."
The first of the virtual meetings between European leaders and the President of Ukraine, convened by the German Chancellor, began as a preparatory meeting for the virtual meeting with the US president. In addition to Merz and Zelensky, the previous virtual meeting also included the leaders of Finland, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Poland, as well as the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council, António Costa, and NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte.
This first meeting, designed to coordinate the European position on the Russian-Ukrainian war, was a prelude to Merz and Zelensky meeting Trump on the screen. Afterward, the German prime minister and the Ukrainian leader will meet again with European representatives.
The Friday meeting between Putin and Trump will take place at the Elmendorf-Richardson military base in Anchorage, Alaska, the White House has confirmed. This military enclave, located north of Anchorage, was the only one that met the security requirements for such a large-scale meeting, which was hastily organized by both countries after last week's talks.
