UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Germany today, as concerns mount in Kyiv and among its European allies that the Ukraine war will be settled over their heads.
The Munich Security Conference kicks off today, only days after US President Donald Trump and Putin held watershed talks that have shaken Ukraine and America’s NATO allies, almost three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Trump said he had agreed with Putin to soon start Ukraine peace talks and exchange friendly visits.
President Trump has effectively pulled the rug out from Ukraine’s negotiating position by conceding, via his Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, that restoring Ukraine’s territory to where it was before the first Russian invasion in 2014 is simply “not realistic”.
The new US administration signalled Ukraine would have to give up territory to Russia and that NATO membership for Kyiv was “impractical”.
Hegseth suggested that Russia could keep Crimea as part of a deal.
He added that Europe cannot assume that US military presence on the continent “will last forever”.
“The American troop levels on the continent are important. What happens five or 10 or 15 years from now is part of a larger discussion that reflects the threat level, America’s posture, (and) our needs around the globe,” Hegseth said.
Vance, ahead of his speech in Munich this afternoon, sought to dampen European fears for peace negoations, telling the Wall Street Journal that “the president is not going to go in this with blinders on”.
“He’s going to say, ‘Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal,’” Vance added, stressing that there are economic and even “military tools of leverage.”
He said that European allies should “of course” join peace negotiations, among concerns that they would be excluded by the US and Russia.
Vance added it was too early to say how much of Ukraine’s territory would remain in Russian hands or what security guarantees the United States and other Western allies could offer Kyiv.
“There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he said.
Zelensky warned world leaders “against trusting Putin’s claims of readiness to end the war” yesterday, saying that he wanted the United States to agree a “plan to stop Putin” before any negotiations.
In an apparent swipe at Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Zelensky in a phone call this morning that the UK was committed “to Ukraine being on an irreversible path to NATO”.
“The prime minister reiterated the UK’s commitment to Ukraine being on an irreversible path to NATO, as agreed by allies at the Washington summit last year,” a spokeswoman in Starmer’s Downing Street office said in a pointed message to the US.
Starmer was also “unequivocal” that there could be no talks about Ukraine, without Ukraine, the spokesperson said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also warned against a peace deal over the Ukraine war that would amount to “capitulation”.
Macron said that only Zelenskyy could negotiate on behalf of Ukraine with Russia to end the war, warning in an interview with the Financial Times that a “peace that is a capitulation” would be “bad news for everyone”, including the US.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who will also be in attendance today, stressed that he would be voicing Ireland’s “steadfast support for Ukraine”.
Echoing Macron’s comments, Martin said that “there can be no agreement on Ukraine without Ukraine”.
“It is more important than ever to stress our strong commitment to helping them achieve a just and sustainable peace based on the principles of the UN Charter,” Martin said.
“The terms and conditions for any peace agreement must be in line with these principles.”
‘Not invited’
Russia has said that it has no representatives at the Munich Security Conference today – as they were “not invited”.
The statement rebuffed Donald Trump’s claims that US officials could meet with Russian and Ukrainian representatives there.
“Russia is going to be there with our people,” Trump told reporters yesterday.
“Ukraine is also invited… not sure exactly who’s going to be there from any country, but high-level people from Russia, from Ukraine and from the United States,” Trump claimed.
This morning, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that Russian officials were not invited to the conference.
“This decision was taken a few years ago… So there will be no representatives of the foreign ministry or other official Russian structures and bodies. I can tell you this for sure,” Zakharova said.
Additional reporting from AFP
