European Council pledges to back Ukraine in joint statement on Trump-Putin summit
The European Council have released a joint statement by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, the European Council president, António Costa and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
The statement, in response to Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska which secured no peace agreement, said: “Leaders welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace.
As President Trump said ‘there’s no deal until there’s a deal’. As envisioned by President Trump, the next step must now be further talks including President Zelenskyy, whom he will meet soon.
We are also ready to work with President Trump and President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support.”
The statement emphasised that “Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We welcome President Trump’s statement that the US is prepared to give security guarantees. The coalition of the willing is ready to play an active role. No limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to EU and Nato.
It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.”
It added: “Our support to Ukraine will continue. We are determined to do more to keep Ukraine strong in order to achieve an end to the fighting and a just and lasting peace.
As long as the killing in Ukraine continues, we stand ready to uphold the pressure on Russia. 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.
Ukraine can count on our unwavering solidarity as we work towards a peace that safeguards Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests.”
Key events
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Two killed in Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Kursk region, Russian governor says
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‘Coalition of the willing’ leaders to meet on Sunday, French president’s office says
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Zelenskyy warns Russia may try to step up attacks in coming days
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Ukrainians label summit as ‘useless meeting’
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Security guarantees ‘essential’, says European Commission president
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Zelenskyy: both Europe and US should provide Ukraine security guarantees
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Security guarantees “most interesting developments” from Alaska summit, Italian PM says
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Trump and European leaders discussed security guarantees for Ukraine
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Starmer: Trump’s efforts have brought us closer to ending war in Ukraine
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European Council pledges to back Ukraine in joint statement on Trump-Putin summit
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Russian forces take Ukrainian villages of Kolodyazi and Vorone, state media says
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Trump says if meeting with Zelenskyy ‘works out’, US will schedule talks with Putin
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Speculation online about air ceasefire
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Factory blast in Russia’s Ryazan kills 11, injures 130
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European leaders speak with Trump post-Alaska summit
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Trump: ‘I think a fast deal is better than a ceasefire’
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Medvedev: negotiations possible during Russian war effort
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Zelenskyy to meet Trump on Monday
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Zelenskyy to meet Trump in Washington on Monday – reports
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Summary so far
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No discussion of a Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy meeting – Kremlin aide
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Trump speaks to Zelenskyy, Nato leaders, White House says
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Interim summary
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In 2024 debate, Harris told Trump that Putin ‘would eat you for lunch’ in Ukraine talks
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Trump claims Putin told him 2020 election ‘was rigged’
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Trump says his advice to Zelenskyy is ‘make a deal’
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‘Wars are very bad; I seem to have an ability to end them’, Trump boasts after failure to broker Ukraine ceasefire
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Trump boasts to Hannity that meeting with Putin was ‘a 10’
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‘Next time in Moscow’: Putin invites Trump to Russia for next round of talks
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‘I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire’, Trump tells Fox en route to summit,
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After summit ends with a whimper, Trump turns to Sean Hannity to make sense of it all
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Fox News calls it ‘really stunning’ that Putin spoke first on US soil
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Trump: ‘No deal until there’s a deal’
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Trump-Putin news conference abruptly ends with no questions from reporters and no details of agreement
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Trump calls meeting with Putin ‘extremely productive’ but says more needs to be done to end war in Ukraine
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Putin says he reached an agreement with Trump
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Putin speaks first at the joint news conference in Alaska
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Trump-Putin summit news conference begins
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Kremlin says Putin’s talks with Trump are over
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White House edits out Trump’s applause for Putin in social media clip
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Ukrainians mock Trump for rolling out the red carpet for Putin
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‘On the day of negotiations, the Russians are killing as well,’ Zelenskyy says from Kyiv
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Trump-Putin meeting is under way
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Trump and Putin begin summit, joined by respective delegations
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Trump and Putin greet each other as summit begins
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Putin to be joined by Russian cabinet officials at summit
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Putin lands in Alaska ahead of summit
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Emotions run high in frontline Ukrainian city over ceding land to Russia
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Trump-Putin meeting no longer one-on-one, press secretary says
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Trump lands in Anchorage, Alaska
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The view from Alaska: meeting could prove a win-win for Trump and Putin
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Russian government plane lands ahead of summit
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Trump’s pivotal meeting with Putin to begin shortly
Two killed in Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Kursk region, Russian governor says
Two people, a 52-year-old man and his 13-year-old son, were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Kursk region, the local governor said on Saturday.
In a statement published on Telegram, the Kursk governor, Alexander Khinshtein, said that the two had been killed when their car caught fire as a result of a drone strike.
Khinshtein said that the attack took place in Rylsk district, a border area close to the part of Kursk region that Ukraine occupied between August 2024 and March this year.
Here are the latest photos coming in:
‘Coalition of the willing’ leaders to meet on Sunday, French president’s office says
The “coalition of the willing” leaders will meet via video conference on Sunday afternoon ahead of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington on Monday, the French presidency office said on Saturday.
The meeting will be co-presided by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the office said.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has warned that the battle for Ukraine’s future and European security has reached a “decisive phase” as he urged the west to maintain unity in its opposition to Vladimir Putin, who he labelled a “cunning and ruthless player”.
The game for Ukraine’s future, Poland’s security, and all of Europe has entered a decisive phase. Today, it is even clearer that Russia respects only the strong, and Putin has once again proven to be a cunning and ruthless player. Therefore, maintaining the unity of the entire West is so important.
Earlier this week, US president Donald Trump at the last minute requested Maga-allied Polish president Karol Nawrocki join the Ukraine teleconference with European leaders on Wednesday, according to centrist Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who had initally been expected to attend. Nawrocki, not Tusk, was present on the call between Trump and European leaders on Friday night after the summit with Putin in Alaska.
Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist and Eurosceptic, is an ally of Trump’s right-wing populist Maga political movement and visited the White House during Poland’s presidential election campaign this year.
Zelenskyy warns Russia may try to step up attacks in coming days
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russia may step up its attacks on Ukraine following the inconclusive Putin-Trump summit and the news that the Ukrainian leader would fly to Washington to meet the US president on Monday. In a post on X, he wrote:
Based on the political and diplomatic situation around Ukraine, and knowing Russia’s treachery, we anticipate that in the coming days the Russian army may try to increase pressure and strikes against Ukrainian positions in order to create more favorable political circumstances for talks with global actors.
Ukrainians label summit as ‘useless meeting’
Agence France-Presse has been speaking to some ordinary Ukrainians to get their view of the summit, and it’s fair to say they are pretty unimpressed.
Pavlo Nebroev stayed up until the middle of the night in Kharkiv, which has suffered repeated Russian bombardments, to wait for the press conference. The 38-year-old theatre manager said:
I saw the results I expected. I think this is a great diplomatic victory for Putin. He has completely legitimised himself.”
Nebroev, like many Ukrainians, was gobsmacked the meeting could take place without representatives of his country.
This was a useless meeting. Issues concerning Ukraine should be resolved with Ukraine, with the participation of Ukrainians, the president.”
Olya Donik, 36, said she was not surprised by the turn of events as she walked through a sunny park in Kharkiv with Nebroev.
“It ended with nothing. Alright, let’s continue living our lives here in Ukraine,” she said.
“Whether there are talks or not, Kharkiv is being shelled almost every day. Kharkiv definitely doesn’t feel any change,” said Iryna Derkach, a 50-year-old photographer.
We believe in victory, we know it will come, but God only knows who exactly will bring it about”.
Derkach, like many Ukrainians, was suspicious of Trump. “We do our job and don’t pay too much attention to what Trump is doing,” she added.
Pharmacist Larysa Melnyk did not think her country was any closer to seeing peace.
“I don’t think there will be a truce,” she told AFP, adding that even if the guns fall silent, it will only be temporarily.
Pjotr Sauer
Russia’s reaction to Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska has been nothing short of jubilant, with Moscow celebrating the fact that the Russian leader met his US counterpart without making concessions and now faces no sanctions despite rejecting Trump’s ceasefire demands.
“The meeting proved that negotiations are possible without preconditions,” wrote former president Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram. He added that the summit showed that talks could continue as Russia wages war in Ukraine.
Trump entered the high-stakes summit warning, “I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire,” and threatening “severe consequences” if Moscow refused to cooperate.
But after a three-hour meeting with the Russian side that yielded no tangible results, Trump shelved his threats and instead insisted that the meeting was “extremely productive,” even as Putin clung to his maximalist demands for ending the war and announced no concessions on the battlefield, where Russian forces are consolidating key gains in eastern Ukraine.
Read the full article here:
Security guarantees ‘essential’, says European Commission president
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on X that strong security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe were “essential” in any peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.
“The EU is working closely with Zelenskyy and the United States to reach a just and lasting peace. Strong security guarantees that protect Ukrainian and European vital security interests are essential,” von der Leyen posted on Saturday.
The EU leaders are emphasising the issue of security guarantees, something Ukraine has been seeking as the minimum feature to secure its future ability to defend itself in the absence of membership of Nato, which is still wants.
More statements have been issued after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska ended in no peace agreement.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said in a statement on Saturday that Russia has no intention of ending its war in Ukraine “anytime soon” but that the US “holds the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously”.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said in a statement on X that France would work with the US and partners in the “coalition of the willing” to make progress on a lasting peace with security guarantees. That coalition will meet in the near future, Macron added.
The spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, said on Saturday: “The way forward can only be through dialogue and diplomacy. The world wants to see an early end to the conflict in Ukraine.”
The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, who has diverged from most western allies by visiting Moscow twice since last year and refusing to provide official military aid to Ukraine, said in a recorded statement on Facebook: “The coming days will show whether the big players in the Union will support this process … or whether the unsuccessful European strategy of trying to weaken Russia through this conflict with all kinds of literally incredible financial, political or military assistance to Kyiv will continue.”
Zelenskyy: both Europe and US should provide Ukraine security guarantees
In a statement posted on the social media platform X, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said: “Security must be guaranteed reliably and in the long term, with the involvement of both Europe and the US.
“All issues important to Ukraine must be discussed with Ukraine’s participation, and no issue, particularly territorial ones, can be decided witout Ukraine.”
He said that Ukraine needed a real, long-lasting peace and not “just another pause” between Russian invasions, and stressed to Trump during their call that sanctions should be strengthened.
Security guarantees “most interesting developments” from Alaska summit, Italian PM says
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said that the discussion of security guarantees was area where “most interesting developments” happened during the Trump-Putin Alaska summit, Reuters reported on Saturday.
Meloni also said that Trump has followed the Italian idea of security guarantees “inspired by Nato’s article 5”.
Trump and European leaders discussed security guarantees for Ukraine
In Trump’s debriefing to European leaders after the Alaska summit with Putin, there were discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine, which is outside Nato.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that the guarantees would be equivalent to article 5, which states that if a Nato ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this as an armed attack against all members.
In a joint statement published earlier today, the European Council said: “No limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to EU and Nato.”
A senior Ukrainian parliamentarian said on Saturday that by proposing to abandon a ceasefire agreement in favour of a peace agreement, Trump is taking Vladimir Putin’s position.
“Unfortunately, Trump has taken Putin’s position, and this was Putin’s demand,” Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Reuters.
“In Putin’s view, a peace agreement means several dangerous things – Ukraine not joining Nato, his absurd demands for denazification and demilitarisation, the Russian language and the Russian church,” he said.
Starmer: Trump’s efforts have brought us closer to ending war in Ukraine
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has released an official statement on Ukraine after the Alaska summit held between president Trump and president Putin.
The statement said: “President Trump’s efforts have brought us closer than ever before to ending Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine. His leadership in pursuit of an end to the killing should be commended.”
It echoed the joint statement released by the European Council by reiterating: “the next step must be further talks involving President Zelenskyy. The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without him.”
Starmer continued: “This morning, I spoke to President Zelenskyy, President Trump and other European partners, and we all stand ready to support this next phase.
I welcome the openness of the United States, alongside Europe, to provide robust security guarantees to Ukraine as part of any deal. This is important progress and will be crucial in deterring Putin from coming back for more.
In the meantime, until he stops his barbaric assault, we will keep tightening the screws on his war machine with even more sanctions, which have already had a punishing impact on the Russian economy and its people.
Our unwavering support for Ukraine will continue as long as it takes.”
European Council pledges to back Ukraine in joint statement on Trump-Putin summit
The European Council have released a joint statement by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, the European Council president, António Costa and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
The statement, in response to Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska which secured no peace agreement, said: “Leaders welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace.
As President Trump said ‘there’s no deal until there’s a deal’. As envisioned by President Trump, the next step must now be further talks including President Zelenskyy, whom he will meet soon.
We are also ready to work with President Trump and President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support.”
The statement emphasised that “Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We welcome President Trump’s statement that the US is prepared to give security guarantees. The coalition of the willing is ready to play an active role. No limitations should be placed on Ukraine’s armed forces or on its cooperation with third countries. Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine’s pathway to EU and Nato.
It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.”
It added: “Our support to Ukraine will continue. We are determined to do more to keep Ukraine strong in order to achieve an end to the fighting and a just and lasting peace.
As long as the killing in Ukraine continues, we stand ready to uphold the pressure on Russia. 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.
Ukraine can count on our unwavering solidarity as we work towards a peace that safeguards Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests.”
European leaders are to release a joint statement after discussing Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday.
The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, wrote on X: “The conversation among European leaders evaluating the information provided by President Trump and the outcomes of the Alaska meeting has concluded.” He added: “Together with @EmmanuelMacron, @—FriedrichMerz, @Keir—Starmer, @GiorgiaMeloni, we listened to the opinions of @ZelenskyyUa and prepared a joint statement.”
He did not say when the statement would be made public.
Russian forces take Ukrainian villages of Kolodyazi and Vorone, state media says
The Russian defence ministry has said its forces have taken Kolodyazi village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to state media reports on Saturday.
Russian state media also reported that forces have taken Vorone village in the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine.
The Guardian could not independently verify battlefield reports.
Trump says if meeting with Zelenskyy ‘works out’, US will schedule talks with Putin
President Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian president Zelenskyy will be coming to the DC Oval Office on Monday afternoon, Reuters reports.
The report added that “if it all works out”, Trump intends to “schedule a meeting with president Putin”.
According to Reuters, Trump has said during the Alaska summit it was determined that the best way to end the war in Ukraine is “to go directly to a peace deal, not ceasefire”.
We will have more on this as the story develops.
Speculation online about air ceasefire
There has been speculation on the social media platform X about an air ceasefire, according to reports from Oliver Carroll, a foreign correspondent for the Economist.
Carroll said on Saturday: “I’m told there is provisional agreement of an air ceasefire until 3-way leaders meeting. ‘We think the skies will give signals about provisional results of these talks,’ source tells me. ‘The next week will be interesting.’”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s communication adviser Dmytro Lytvyn responded to the post, writing: “We haven’t heard anything about it yet”.
There have been no reports of a ceasefire deal from Washington or Moscow.
During what was billed as a joint news conference after the Alaska summit, Putin claimed that some sort of agreement had been reached, but Trump said that there had been ‘no deal’ and then abruptly ended the event, taking no questions.
