Photo caption from left: Putin and Trump
Donald Trump has told European leaders he wants to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine during his crunch talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday, French president Emmanuel Macron has said.
The French president was speaking after Mr Trump spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, as Kyiv presses its case on the US president ahead of the landmark meeting on Friday.
Other world leaders – including coalition of the willing members such as Sir Keir Starmer – also joined the conversation, which was hosted by German chancellor Friedrich Merz.
European leaders remain concerned that the Russian president will set his sights on them if a lenient ceasefire deal on Ukraine is brokered by Trump, who said Europe’s heads of state are “great people who want to see a deal done.”
It comes as Russia’s foreign ministry said its stance on ending the three-and-a-half-year-old war remained “unchanged” since June 2024, in which Putin demanded a full Ukrainian withdrawal from four regions of the country that Russia has claimed as its own territory but does not fully control.
Zelensky said that Putin has demanded Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk as part of any potential ceasefire deal, but the Ukrainian leader has vowed Ukraine would “never leave” the Donbas and warned Mr Putin’s troops could use it as a spring board for a future invasion.
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=== The Independent ===
