MOSCOW, BRATISLAVA. Not even a week has passed since Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly approved the involvement of European leaders in security guarantees for Ukraine during a summit with US President Donald Trump, but everything is different again.

Russia recently insisted that it must have veto power over any post-war support for Ukraine.

Shortly after the pair's summit in Alaska on Friday, US officials initially claimed that the debate on security guarantees for Ukraine similar to NATO's Article 5 represented a significant shift in Russia's efforts to bring peace.

The White House portrayed Russia's alleged agreement as the main achievement of the Anchorage meeting. But now it appears the Kremlin has trampled on the US peace initiative. According to The Wall Street Journal, Moscow has either changed its mind or Washington has misinterpreted the Kremlin's position.

Russia, meanwhile, has launched one of the most intense bombings of Ukraine in recent weeks. The Russian military launched 574 drones and 40 missiles into Ukrainian territory on Thursday.

In a dead end

Shortly after the summit, information was also circulating that the Russian delegation had proposed China as a security guarantor. However, Chinese troops would pose an alarming security situation in Europe.

"The involvement of the Chinese military directly in Europe would be unacceptable for Europeans," security analyst Martin Sklenár from the non-profit organization GLOBSEC summed up for the SME daily on Tuesday.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that China should also play a role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine, adding that European proposals to deploy troops in Ukraine would amount to"foreign intervention," which he described as absolutely unacceptable to Russia.

Lavrov ultimately said Russia wanted to return to discussing a framework first proposed during initial peace talks in Turkey in 2022, under which Moscow and Beijing would help guarantee Ukraine's security alongside European leaders. This is unacceptable to Kiev.

“We support the security guarantees that were agreed in April 2022,” Lavrov concluded. “Anything else is, of course, an absolutely futile effort.”