US Proposes NATO-Style Security Cover

This comes after Don rejected ceasefire, calls for direct peace deal

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EUROPEAN leaders on Saturday expressed support for a three-way summit between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia's Vladimir Putin and US leader Donald Trump, after a US-Russia summit failed to produce a ceasefire. A statement, signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, insisted on maintaining pressure on Russia until peace was achieved, including through sanctions.

The European leaders also insisted Moscow "cannot have a veto" on Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO. Russia has made clear it will not tolerate Kyiv's membership of the defence alliance. But the leaders said they were "ready to work towards a trilateral summit with European support". Friday's Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska ended without the US president extracting concrete commitments from Putin to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022. "We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia's war economy until there is a just and lasting peace," said the European joint statement.