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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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
A senior Ukrainian parliamentarian said on Saturday that by proposing to abandon a ceasefire agreement in favour of a peace agreement, president Trump is taking Russian president Vladimir Putin’s position.
“Unfortunately, Trump has taken Putin’s position, and this was Putin’s demand,” Oleksandr Merezhko, 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.
Factory blast in Russia’s Ryazan kills 11, injures 130
A blast at a factory in the Russian region of Ryazan on Friday killed 11 people and left 130 injured, Russia’s emergencies ministry said on Saturday.
In a statement on Telegram, the ministry said rescuers were continuing to search through rubble at the scene of the blast, 200 miles (320km) south-east of Moscow.
The Ryazan regional governor, Pavel Malkov, said on Friday that the incident had been triggered by a fire breaking out inside a workshop at the factory.
There was no cause given for the fire, not was it clear what the factory produced. Ukrainian drones have previously targeted military and economic infrastructure in Ryazan region. In January, a major oil refinery and power station had been hit by Ukrainian drones.
Some Russian media outlets reported that the explosion was caused by gunpowder catching fire.
European leaders speak with Trump post-Alaska summit
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, spoke on the phone with Donald Trump and European partners on Saturday morning after the meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska, the Élysée office said in a statement on Saturday.
The phone conversation lasted for one hour and other there were seven other European leaders present, including Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer, Giorgia Meloni, Alexander Stubb and Karol Nawrocki, as well as the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, the statement said.
We are yet to hear from Sir Keir Starmer’s government, but other European politicians have been reacting.
Italy’s deputy PM, Matteo Salvini said: “Every step forward towards peace, like this one, is good news. As Pope Leo said, may diplomacy speak again in place of weapons, without anyone obstructing it.”
The Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, said: “President Putin of Russia reiterated known arguments, such as emphasising the so-called ‘root causes’ of the war, which is code for the Russian justification for the illegal invasion of Ukraine.” He added it was important to keep pressure on Russia and listen to Ukraine’s wishes and needs.
The Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský said he was “glad that President Trump is trying to stop the war” but that there has been “propagandistic nonsense about the ‘roots of the conflict’” from Putin in the subsequent press conference.
“The problem is Russian imperialism, not Ukraine’s desire to live freely,” he continued. “If Putin were serious about negotiating peace, he would not have been attacking Ukraine all day today.”
Lithuania’s defence minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, accused Putin of making “some more gaslighting and veiled threats” towards Ukraine and Europe in the press conference, in which the Russian leader said he hoped the countries “will not try to sabotage the talks”.
Hungary’s PM, Viktor Orbán, wrote on Facebook: “For years, we have watched the two largest nuclear powers eliminate the framework of their cooperation and send messages to each other.” He added “It’s over now. The world is a safer place today than it was yesterday.”
Trump: ‘I think a fast deal is better than a ceasefire’
President Trump told Zelenskyy and Nato leaders that Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire and prefers a comprehensive agreement to end the war, the Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X. The post added that Trump has said: “I think a fast peace deal is better than a ceasefire.”
Medvedev: negotiations possible during Russian war effort
Pjotr Sauer
Russia’s initial reaction to the Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin summit has been decisively positive, with Moscow highlighting 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 and simultaneously with the continuation of the ‘special military operation’,” wrote the former president Dmitry Medvedev on Telegram, using Russia’s preferred term for its invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev, now the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, welcomed the fact that Putin was able to “personally and in detail present” Russia’s maximalist conditions for ending the war. In Alaska, Putin repeated his familiar line that the “root causes” of the conflict must be addressed – demands that in practice would severely limit Ukraine’s sovereignty.
He also picked up on Trump’s remarks that the pressure now lies with Kyiv, indirectly referring to the US president’s blunt message that Zelenskyy “gotta make a deal”.
“Both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ending military actions on Kyiv and Europe,” Medvedev wrote.
Russian state media and the Kremlin elite were already in high spirits as Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin, who is wanted by The Hague for war crimes.
“Western media are on the verge of completely losing it,” wrote the foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova as Putin landed in Alaska.
“For three years they told everyone Russia was isolated and today they saw a beautiful red carpet laid out for the Russian president in the US,” she added.
Zelenskyy to meet Trump on Monday
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that he plans to meet Trump in Washington on Monday after Trumps’s summit with Putin.
“Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace,” Zelenskyy said on X on Saturday.
“We support President Trump’s proposal for a trilateral meeting between Ukraine, the USA, and Russia. Ukraine emphasises that key issues can be discussed at the level of leaders, and a trilateral format is suitable for this,” he added.
We had a long and substantive conversation with @POTUS. We started with one-on-one talks before inviting European leaders to join us. This call lasted for more than an hour and a half, including about an hour of our bilateral conversation with President Trump.
Ukraine reaffirms… pic.twitter.com/64IPVhtFaB
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 16, 2025
Zelenskyy to meet Trump in Washington on Monday – reports
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is planning to meet Donald Trump in Washington as soon as Monday, the Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X on Saturday.
Zelenskyy has said that his call with Trump lasted more than an hour and a half, and that Ukraine supports trilateral meetings. He added that Europe should be part of these talks at all stages.
Summary so far
For those joining us now, here’s what you might have missed.
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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met on a red carpet laid down for them at a US military base in the former Russian territory of Alaska, and spent about three hours in private talks, with top foreign policy aides, aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian observers were horrified that Trump laid out a red carpet for Putin, and even applauded him.
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The meeting, billed as a summit, came to an end much earlier than scheduled, after the first of what was supposed to have been two rounds of talks.
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Reporters were summoned for what was billed as a joint news conference, but were instead treated to a pair of brief statements that lasted, in total, 12 minutes. After Putin claimed that some sort of agreement had been reached, Trump said that there had been ‘no deal’ and then abruptly ended the event, taking no questions.
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The White House said Trump has had a “lengthy” call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Nato leaders, on the plane after the meeting before he returned to DC.
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The meeting was criticised by Democrats, some European officials, Ukrainian media outlets, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, and the former US national security advisor, John Bolton, who said “Putin clearly won”.
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A Fox News reporter called it “really stunning” that Putin spoke first in the event.
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In a post-summit interview with his supporter Sean Hannity, Trump said that the meeting with Putin had been “a 10” and suggested that Putin “spoke very sincerely” about his desire to end the war in Ukraine.
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Trump also claimed to Hannity that Putin, the Russian autocrat who has jailed, exiled and killed political rivals who could challenge him in elections, told him that the 2020 US presidential election “was rigged” and “you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting.’”
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Trump reportedly hand-delivered a letter from his wife, Melania, to Putin at the meeting. The letter raised the plight of children abducted during the war in Ukraine – for which Putin is wanted by the international criminal court – White House officials said, without providing further details.
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Overnight, Russia launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile targeting Ukraine’s territory, Ukraine’s air force said.
Dan Sabbagh
Few in Ukraine are surprised at the apparent lack of outcome in the Alaska summit. There was little to no expectation of progress towards a ceasefire, never mind an actual cessation of hostilities, given Putin’s long history of aggression and intransigence towards the country.
Though Trump said that the leaders had a “very productive meeting”, the look on his face suggested otherwise. Critical for Ukraine’s leadership today will be to understand if Putin’s maximalist negotiating position has adjusted at all – and how the US leader responded to the demands of his Russian counterpart.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said repeatedly that he did not believe that Putin was a good faith negotiator and has expressed the belief that Donald Trump would eventually conclude the same for himself. The hope in Kyiv will now be that Trump can be gently steered towards closer support for Ukraine and consider moving forward with measures such as secondary sanctions on Russia oil exports.
But there is also a grim anxiety. Russian missile and drone attacks into Ukraine have been reduced in the days running up to the summit. Now the meeting is over, the fear is that a return to large scale night time assaults could follow.
Vladimir Putin remains determined to “revive the Soviet Union” by “destroying democracy next door”, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, has said.
Speaking to Australia’s national broadcaster, in the wake of the meeting, Myroshnychenko pushed back on Putin’s rhetoric about needing to solve the “root causes” of the conflict.
He said the root cause of the conflict from Putin’s perspective was a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine.
“When Putin talks about the ‘root cause of war’, it’s an independent Ukraine on the map of Europe. That’s the only cause of war for Russia,” he said.
“Putin is just out there on his mission to revive the Soviet Union, to revive the Russian empire, and it can’t be revived without Ukraine. Just overnight, as we speak, Russians have attacked many Ukrainian cities, sent many drones. So we don’t really see any indication of him ending his war.”
Read more here:
No discussion of a Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy meeting – Kremlin aide
The Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov says there was no discussion of a three-way summit between the Russian, US and Ukrainian presidents, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.
After the meeting, Trump had told reporters it was now up to Zelenskyy to “get it done” and that a meeting would be set up between the Ukrainian president and Putin, which Trump might attend.
Ushakov said he did not know yet when Putin and Trump would meet again after Friday’s summit in Alaska.
