Paris meeting is the ‘what the hell do we do now summit’, says FRANCE 24’s Douglas Herbert
FRANCE 24 international affairs editor Douglas Herbert said that Monday’s gathering of core European leaders in Paris is about rustling up a plan to prevent Ukraine from being invaded again and potentially the prospect of Russian incursions into other European territories.
“This is the ‘what the hell do we do now summit’,” Herbert said of the Paris summit.
“They’re looking at the prospect right now of American officials and Russian officials giving Putin a free ticket to do as he pleases with Ukraine. That means stripping its sovereignty, weakening it militarily, keeping control of the fifth of Ukraine they already have, eventually installing a government with a pro-Russian stooge, ousting Zelensky and carving up spheres of influence between the US and Russia back to the Cold War. That’s the prospect we’re contemplating this Monday morning.”
Spain warns against rewarding Russian aggression
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said European leaders will discuss in Paris on
Monday how to prevent a peace negotiation on Ukraine ending up rewarding Russian aggression.
“A war of aggression cannot be rewarded, we cannot encourage others to launch wars of aggression,” he said in an interview with radio station Onda Cero.
“Today I’m convinced Putin will keep attacking and bombing Ukraine. So I do not see peace on the horizon at the moment,” he added.
Sweden says ‘not ruling out’ sending peacekeepers to Ukraine
Sweden’s foreign minister said on Monday that it was “not ruling out” sending troops to Ukraine as part of any postwar peacekeeping force.
The minister’s comments came after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine for peacekeeping duties as he tried to show the U.S. that European nations should have a role in talks on ending the war.
“We must now first negotiate a just and sustainable peace that respects international law, that respects Ukraine and that first and foremost ensures Russia can’t just pull back, build new strength and attack Ukraine or another country in just a few years’ time,” Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said in an interview.
“Once we have such a peace established we need to ensure it can be maintained and then our government doesn’t exclude anything,” she added.
Trump says could meet Putin ‘very soon’ as Saudi talks loom
US President Donald Trump said Sunday he could meet “very soon” with Vladimir Putin, adding he believes his Russian counterpart genuinely wants to stop fighting in Ukraine.
“No time set, but it could be very soon,” Trump told reporters, hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to play down expectations of upcoming high-level talks in Riyadh on ending the war.
With Rubio set to lead a high-level American delegation at the discussions with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital in the coming days, a flurry of diplomacy was taking place as the brutal Ukraine war nears its third anniversary.
Trump, addressing reporters after a flight on Air Force One, said his team has been speaking “long and hard” with Russian officials, including his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff whom the president said met with Putin for about three hours recently.
“I think he wants to stop fighting,” Trump said of Putin.
UK PM Starmer offers to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine as part of any postwar peacekeeping force as he tried to show the US that European nations should have a role in the talks on ending the conflict.
Starmer said he had not taken the decision to consider putting British servicemen and women “in harm’s way” lightly, but securing a lasting peace in Ukraine was essential to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from further aggression.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said Ukraine and Europe would be part of any “real negotiations” to end Moscow’s war, signalling that US talks with Russia this week were a chance to see how serious Putin is about peace.
The end of Russia’s war with Ukraine “when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again,” Starmer wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Starmer’s comments were the first time he has explicitly said he is considering deploying British peacekeepers to Ukraine. He has previously said that Britain was willing to help play a part in any peace deal that is negotiated.
In the article, Starmer said he was prepared to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by “putting our own troops on the ground if necessary”.
Macron mobilises European leaders
French President Emmanuel Macron is rallying European leaders, with his foreign minister announcing an emergency “working meeting” on Ukraine’s next steps after recent US announcements.
Speaking to France-Info on Sunday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot sought to project a united front: “A wind of unity is blowing over Europe, as we perhaps have not felt since the COVID period.”
Macron had called for “consultations between European leaders on the situation in Ukraine and the security challenges in Europe.”
He will host an informal afternoon meeting Monday with the leaders of Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as European Council President Antonio Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Europe tries to muscle up as US plots mediation to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine
European leaders took steps Sunday to answer assertive US efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, as France announced a meeting of continental leaders and Baltic countries called for new steps to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in any future talks.
The jockeying for position by Europe, Ukraine’s top military and financial backer along with the US, comes as the Trump administration has quickly sought to mediate an end to the fighting three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With Moscow’s forces making some territorial gains in eastern Ukraine in recent months, Finnish President Alexander Stubb on the last day of the Munich Security Conference called for “maximum pressure on Russia” through sanctions and asset freezes in the lead-up to any talks.
He laid out three phases: “pre-negotiation,” ceasefire and long-term peace talks.
“The first phase is the pre-negotiation, and this is a moment when we need to rearm Ukraine and put maximum pressure on Russia, which means sanctions, which means frozen assets, so that Ukraine begins these negotiations from a position of strength,” Stubb said.
Europe will not be part of Ukraine peace talks, US envoy says
Europe won’t have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy said on Saturday, after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
Trump shocked European allies this week by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin without consulting them or Kyiv beforehand and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.
Trump administration officials have also made clear in recent days that they expect European allies in NATO to take primary responsibility for the region as the US now has other priorities, such as border security and countering China.
The US moves have stoked fears that Europeans may be cut out of a peace deal that would also impact their own security, particularly if it is seen as too favourable to Russia.
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