Berlin [Germany], August 17: While fears that US President Donald Trump might agree to unacceptable concessions for Ukraine did not materialise at Trump's Friday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it does not appear that the two sides are any closer to a peace agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due in Washington on Monday to speak with Trump, and European leaders are to hold a conference on Sunday at 3pm (1300 GMT) to discuss the summit.
On Saturday, Europeans stressed the need for strong security guarantees for Ukraine and warned against believing anything Putin says.
"The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war anytime soon," Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, wrote on X.
She noted that while Trump and Putin met in Alaska, Russia launched new attacks on Ukraine.
"The real root cause of the war is Russia's imperialist foreign policy, not an imaginary imbalance in the European security architecture," she wrote.
She said Putin is intentionally dragging out the negotiations "and hopes he gets away with it."
Ceasefire before peace deal
There has also been much talk over the last two days about whether it would be better for Ukraine to have a ceasefire first and then a peace deal.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that if a peace deal can be obtained quickly, that would be better than first agreeing to a ceasefire.
"If that succeeds, it is worth more than a ceasefire that might last for weeks without further progress in political and diplomatic efforts," he told German public broadcaster ZDF.
The German government and other European governments had insisted, ahead of the Alaska summit, that an immediate ceasefire must mark the beginning of a peace process in Ukraine. Trump had also supported this position but abandoned it, as he made clear after the summit.
Putin has long lobbied against a ceasefire.
But on Saturday, a top Zelensky aide rejected that.
"Our view is: first a ceasefire, then everything else," Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to Zelensky, said on Ukrainian television. If the fighting continued during the talks, there would be "great risks of blackmailing Ukraine," Leshchenko said.
Trump wrote earlier on his Truth Social network after consultations with Zelensky and European allies that "all" agreed the best way to achieve peace in Ukraine was to reach a peace agreement directly - and not with a ceasefire agreement, which often does not hold.
Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for almost three and a half years.
Trilateral meeting not discussed
It remained entirely unclear whether Putin made any concessions during the roughly three-hour meeting with Trump. According to sources in Moscow, a trilateral meeting involving Trump, Putin, and Zelensky was not discussed.
In comment after comment, European leaders stressed the need for Ukraine to have security guarantees, but it is unclear whether Washington would agree to this.
"We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity," a joint statement by European leaders issued on Saturday said.
According to the signatories, Trump confirmed his willingness to provide Ukraine with appropriate guarantees together with Europe in a call with European leaders after his talks with Putin in the city of Anchorage on Friday.
Trump made no mention of US security guarantees either on Saturday, surrounding the summit or in comments afterwards.
But Trump's reported willingness to provide such guarantees, along with Europe, was welcomed in the statement by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and European Council President Antonio Costa.
In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday stressed the need to maintain pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine, saying Europeans agree that a robust peace must be accompanied by unshakeable security guarantees.
"I welcome, in this regard, the readiness of the United States to contribute," Macron wrote on X.
Macron also urged that lessons be learned from the past 30 years, and "in particular from Russia's well-established tendency not to honour its own commitments."
Source: Qatar Tribune