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European leaders on Sunday spoke to Donald Trump ahead of the US president’s call with Vladimir Putin at the start of what could be a pivotal week for stalled Ukraine peace talks.
Trump has cast his phone call with the Russian president, their first publicly disclosed encounter in almost three months, as a critical moment to establish concrete parameters for a lasting settlement to the war.
Long worried that the US president might cut a deal with the Kremlin that would overlook Ukraine’s interests, Europe’s leaders have been racing to influence Trump’s thinking ahead of the talks.
“Looking ahead to President Trump’s call with President Putin tomorrow, the leaders discussed the need for an unconditional ceasefire and for President Putin to take peace talks seriously,” a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Sunday night.
“They also discussed the use of sanctions if Russia failed to engage seriously in a ceasefire and peace talks.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz joined French President Emmanuel Macron and the UK premier for their second call with Trump since Friday.
“We can only hope that there will be further progress,” said Merz, who along with London and Paris has been arguing to raise pressure on Moscow. “My firm impression is that both the Europeans and the Americans are determined to work together, but now also purposefully, to ensure that this terrible war ends soon.”
During a flurry of diplomacy over the past 10 days, Putin has given little ground, refusing to engage on terms set by others and spurning a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey last week despite proposing talks between the two sides.
While the US administration has grown more impatient with Russia, Trump’s team were guarded in their criticisms of Putin. Trump said on Friday that he arranged the direct call with Putin because he always felt a peace deal was not possible “without me”. Trump is expected to speak to Zelenskyy after his call with the Kremlin.
Zelenskyy on Sunday met US vice-president JD Vance in Rome, the first encounter between the two men since their blow-up in the White House in February. Zelenskyy called it a “good meeting” and said it included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“We discussed the negotiations in Istanbul, where the Russians sent a low-level delegation with no decision-making authority,” Zelenskyy said. “I reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for real diplomacy and stressed the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible.”
Rubio has said that his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov told him on Saturday that Moscow would prepare a document “outlining their requirements for a ceasefire that would then lead to broader negotiations”.
“We don’t want to be involved in this process of just endless talks, there has to be some progress, some movement forward,” he said in an interview with CBS.
If a document is agreed “in the next few days” where both sides show willingness to make concessions “then I think we can feel good about continuing to remain engaged”. “If, on the other hand, what we see is not very productive, perhaps we’ll have a different assessment,” he said.
Kyiv and its European allies are fearful that if the Trump administration walks away from peace talks, it would also stop or reduce US military support to Ukraine, handing a further battlefield advantage to Moscow in its full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
Zelenskyy has been closely co-ordinating with European leaders and joined their call with Trump on Friday. During a visit to Rome on Sunday, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said the coming week “will be crucial” in attempting to push forward the peace process.
Signalling its intent to weaken Ukraine before any peace talks, Russia carried out its largest drone attack on Ukraine of the war over the weekend, launching 273 explosive-laden drones and decoys, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, GUR, also warned on Sunday that Russia intends to conduct a training launch of an RS-24 “Yars” intercontinental ballistic missile during the night of May 19.
The agency said the launch is meant to “intimidate Ukraine” and that the missile would be equipped with a training warhead. It said the missile has a range of 10,000km and would be launched from a site in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, near the Ural Mountains.
Additional reporting: Barbara Moens in Brussels and Laura Pitel in Berlin
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