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What can we expect from the European crisis summit on Trump’s Ukraine plan next week?
Just as a reminder, European leaders, including British prime minister Keir Starmer, are set to gather next week in Paris for an emergency summit on the war in Ukraine. Here is some of what we can expect from the meeting of European leaders, as reported by my colleagues Patrick Wintour and Toby Helm in this story:
The meeting, likely to be held on Monday, is expected to discuss US efforts to exclude European leaders from the peace talks, the position Europe should adopt on Ukraine’s future membership of Nato and how Ukraine can be offered security guarantees, either through Nato or some European force.
Downing Street confirmed on Saturday it had heard about the proposed meeting and officials made clear that Starmer would attend and take messages from the meeting to Washington this week, when he will meet President Trump.
UK sources said they believed those invited to Paris by Emmanuel Macron would be the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the UK and Poland.
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We are expecting to hear from US secretary of state Marco Rubio later this morning, who is in Jerusalem ahead of talks about the war in Ukraine with Russia in Saudi Arabia in the coming days.
Yesterday, Rubio spoke with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as a follow-up to Trump’s phone call with Putin on Wednesday.
“The secretary re-affirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said. “In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues.”
Rubio will meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday before traveling to the UAE and Saudi Arabia (both countries have rejected Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza).
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the significance of the phone call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump last week was that now Russia and the US would speak about peace and not war.
The two leaders spoke for more than an hour on Wednesday and Trump later said that it was not practical for Ukraine to have Nato membership, something Kyiv has been seeking as a guarantee of its future security. In their call, Trump and Putin reportedly agreed that negotiations to end the war will start “immediately”.
When asked about the phone call, Peskov told state TV Kremlin reporter Pavel Zarubin: “This is a powerful signal that we will now try to solve problems through dialogue.” “Now we will talk about peace, not war,” he said in a clip of the interview released earlier today.
Peskov added that western sanctions – imposed on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – would not prevent talks as they could be “lifted as quickly as imposed”.
What can we expect from the European crisis summit on Trump’s Ukraine plan next week?
Just as a reminder, European leaders, including British prime minister Keir Starmer, are set to gather next week in Paris for an emergency summit on the war in Ukraine. Here is some of what we can expect from the meeting of European leaders, as reported by my colleagues Patrick Wintour and Toby Helm in this story:
The meeting, likely to be held on Monday, is expected to discuss US efforts to exclude European leaders from the peace talks, the position Europe should adopt on Ukraine’s future membership of Nato and how Ukraine can be offered security guarantees, either through Nato or some European force.
Downing Street confirmed on Saturday it had heard about the proposed meeting and officials made clear that Starmer would attend and take messages from the meeting to Washington this week, when he will meet President Trump.
UK sources said they believed those invited to Paris by Emmanuel Macron would be the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the UK and Poland.
In the UK, the business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds has been questioned by Sky News’ Trevor Phillips about the US’s approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Phillips asked Reynolds about the differing statements given by London and Washington about Ukraine’s Nato membership. Keir Starmer has repeatedly said the UK will continue to back Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to joining the military alliance despite Washington appearing to rule out membership.
Reynolds disagrees that the UK and US have divergent views about Ukraine’s Nato membership. He said all parties want the war in Ukraine to end and stressed that Kyiv has to be part of negotiations in order to ensure a “durable peace”.
Reynolds said the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said that “everything is still on the table”. This is despite Hegseth ruling out Nato membership for Ukraine and the restoration of Crimea and other territories occupied by Moscow since 2014, in effect conceding to some of Russia’s demands even before negotiations began.
“There is a role the UK can play which is in that bridge between European allies and our US allies. We can be that bridge that strengthens that relationship.” Reynolds added.
Nato – which has 32 members across Europe and North America – operates by consensus, meaning that the objection of a single country is enough to block a new country from joining. Reynolds played down divisions within the alliance, saying it is too early for such pessimism.
He said that most Europeans recognise Trump’s mandate from the presidential election in November and that there is agreement that defence spending by Nato members should increase to share some of the “burden” of collective defence as the US shifts its geo-political priorities.
Labour has pledged to raise defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP, half of what Donald Trump has called on Nato nations to spend on defence. Reynolds said he recognises that “more” will have to be spent on defence, without committing to any figures. He was speaking as the UK finalises a strategic defence review, which the government says will be released in the first half of the year.
Trump team to start Russia-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia
As we mentioned in the opening summary, there are reports that senior Trump officials are heading to Saudi Arabia next week to begin so-called peace talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators.
US national security adviser Mike Waltz, secretary of state Marco Rubio and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Saudi Arabia, according to Politico.
Michael McCaul, chair of the US house foreign affairs committee, said the talks were aimed at arranging a meeting with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy “to finally bring peace and end this conflict”.
US officials said that Ukraine was also invited – although Zelenskyy says his country has received no such invitation, underlining concerns about US efforts to exclude Ukraine and European leaders from the talks.
According to Politico, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine-Russia talks, retired Gen Keith Kellogg, will not be in attendance. There are no plans to send a delegation from Kyiv to the talks, as the news of the meeting in Saudi Arabia reportedly came as a surprise to Ukrainian officials.
Opening summary
The Munich security conference concludes today after a dramatic two days during which the US vice-president, JD Vance, excoriated European leaders, accusing them of suppressing free speech, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, declared it was time to create a European army.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine looming over the conference, the two men met at its sidelines, with Zelenskyy demanding “security guarantees” and a joint US-Ukrainian peace plan before he enters into any talks with Moscow.
But what may have loomed even larger is the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin earlier in the week, during which the US and Russian leaders agreed to begin talks on a ceasefire – sparking fears that Ukraine and Europe would be cut out of any negotiations.
With European leaders scrambling to mount a united front on Saturday, Marco Rubio spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and there are reports the US’s top diplomat will lead a delegation to Saudi Arabia next week to meet Russian officials and start talks on ending the war.
In other developments:
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Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Europe will be consulted – but ultimately excluded – from the talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US. “To my European friends, I would say: ‘Get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up [defence] spending’,” Kellogg said at the Munich conference on Saturday.
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Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said “Europe needs to talk less and do more”, in response to the prospect of being shut out of talks. “There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Stubb told reporters in Munich. “But this means that Europe needs to get its act together.”
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The Nato chief, Mark Rutte, said Europe had to come up with “good proposals” for securing peace in Ukraine if it wanted to be involved in US-led talks. “If Europeans want to have a say, make yourself relevant,” Rutte told journalists.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, have discussed Kyiv’s vision of a path to peace with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. Sybiha said on X the meeting that took place on the sidelines of the Munich conference was to “reaffirm mutual respect for territorial integrity”. On Friday, Wang told the conference that China believes all stakeholders in the war in Ukraine should participate in the peace talks, underscoring Europe’s role in them.
