Ukraine, Europe worry about being sidelined as Trump pushes direct talks with Russia on war's end
U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in N.Y., Sept. 27, 2024. AP-Yonhap
President Donald Trump’s approach to ending Russia’s war against Ukraine has left European allies and Ukrainian officials worried they are being largely sidelined by the new U.S. administration as Washington and Moscow plan direct negotiations.
With the three-year war grinding on, Trump is sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian counterparts, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to publicly discuss the upcoming diplomatic efforts and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It is unclear to what extent Ukrainian or European officials will be represented in discussions expected to take place in Riyadh in the coming days. The official said the United States sees negotiations as early-stage and fluid, and who ultimately ends up at the table could change.
In an exchange with reporters Sunday, Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “will be involved” in the negotiations. Trump offered no further explanation.
The outreach comes after comments by top Trump advisers this past week, including Vice President JD Vance, raised new concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that the Republican administration is intent on quick resolution to the conflict with minimum input from Europe.
“Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Zelenskyy said in an address Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. “From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that.”
White House officials on Sunday pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation. Trump spoke by phone in recent days with French President Emmanuel Macron and is expected to consult with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week.
During his visit to Munich and Paris, Vance held talks with Macron, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte as well as Zelenskyy.
“Now they may not like some of this sequencing that is going on in these negotiations, but I have to push back on this ... notion that they aren’t being consulted,” Waltz told “Fox News Sunday.”
"They absolutely are and at the end of the day, though, this is going to be under President Trump’s leadership that we get this war to an end,’’ Waltz said.
Rubio, who was in Israel on Sunday before heading to Saudi Arabia, said the U.S. is taking a careful approach as it reengages with Moscow after the Biden administration's clampdown on contacts with the Kremlin following the February 2022 invasion.
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the beginning of a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. AP-Yonhap
Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week and the two leaders agreed to begin high-level talks on ending the war. They were initially presented as two-way, but Trump later affirmed that Ukraine would have a seat — though he did not say at what stage.
It was not immediately clear whether any Ukrainians would take part in the upcoming Riyadh talks. A Ukrainian delegation was in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to pave the way for a possible visit by Zelenskyy, according to Ukraine's economy minister.
Starmer, the U.K. premier, wrote in an op-ed for Monday’s Daily Telegraph that Ukraine must be involved in any negotiations on its future “because anything less would accept Putin’s position that Ukraine is not a real nation.
Starmer also recalled the U.S. disastrous troop withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden. “We cannot have another situation like Afghanistan, where the U.S. negotiated directly with the Taliban and cut out the Afghan government,” Starmer said. “I feel sure that President Trump will want to avoid this too.”
Trump on Sunday said he believed Putin is eager for a deal, while also noting that Russia has historically impressed on the battlefield.
“I think he wants to stop fighting,” Trump said. “They have a big powerful machine, you understand that. They defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon. They’ve been fighting a long time.”
Heather Conley, a deputy assistant Secretary of State for Central Europe during Republican President George W. Bush's administration, said that with Trump's current approach to Moscow, the U.S. appears to be “seeking to create a new international approach based on a modern-day concert of great powers.”
“As in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is only for the great powers to decide the fate of nations and to take — either by purchase or force — that which strengthens the great powers’ economic and security interests,” Conley said. “Each of these powers posit claims or coerce countries in their respective regional spheres of influence.”
There is some debate inside the administration about its developing approach to Moscow, with some more in favor of a rapid rapprochement and others wary that Putin is looking to fray the Euro-Atlantic alliance as he aims to reclaim Russian status and wield greater influence on the continent, according to the U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump said last week that he would like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.
“I’d like to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia,” Trump told reporters. “I think Putin would love to be back.”
The anticipated Saudi talks also come amid tension over Trump's push to get the Ukrainians to agree to give the U.S access to Ukraine's deposits of rare earth minerals in exchange for some $66 billion in military aid that Washington has provided Kyiv since the start of the war, as well as future defense assistance.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third from left, speaks during a bilateral meeting with United States Vice-President JD Vance on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14. AP-Yonhap
Zelenskyy, who met on Friday with Vance and other senior U.S. officials in Munich, said he had directed Ukraine's minister to not sign off, at least for now. He said in an interview that the deal as presented by the U.S. was too focused on American interests and did not include security guarantees for Ukraine.
The White House called Zelenskyy's decision “short-sighted," and argued that a rare-earth's deal would tie Ukraine closer to the United States — something that Moscow doesn't want to see.
European officials were also left unsettled by some of Vance's remarks during his five-day visit to Paris and Munich last week in which he lectured them on free speech and illegal migration on the continent. He warned that they risk losing public support if they don’t quickly change course.
Vance also met while in Munich with Alice Weidel, the co-leader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party in this month's election.
Throughout Europe, officials are now looking to recalibrate their approach in the face of the Trump administration's unfolding Ukraine strategy.
Macron will convene top European countries in Paris on Monday for an emergency “working meeting” to discuss next steps for Ukraine, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday.
“A wind of unity is blowing over Europe, as we perhaps have not felt since the COVID period," Barrot told public broadcaster France-Info. (AP)