European leaders are looking for ways to influence Trump at a new summit with Putin - Bloomberg
Kyiv • UNN
European leaders are trying to find a place at the negotiating table after Putin's contact with Trump threatens to nullify their efforts to increase pressure on Russia over the war in Ukraine. Trump said he would hold a second summit with Putin in Budapest after lengthy telephone conversations.
European leaders are once again trying to find a place at the negotiating table after the latest contact between Kremlin head Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump threatens to nullify their efforts to increase pressure on Russia over the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, writes UNN.
Details
Trump announced that he would hold a second summit with Putin, this time in Budapest, after lengthy telephone conversations between the two leaders on Thursday.
Putin's intervention came just as momentum was building in favor of Ukraine with Trump, said four European officials who expressed concern about the summit announcement. The Russian leader was stalling and trying to disrupt Zelenskyy's negotiations at the White House, according to officials.
EU leaders must take a firm stance on Russia and find ways to counter Putin's influence on Trump at the summit, two officials said. One of them suggested that Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who played a key role in the White House talks after Trump's August summit with Putin in Alaska, should be present in Hungary.
"The summit certainly halts Washington's current trend of increasing dissatisfaction with and pressure on Russia," said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Eurasia Center in Berlin. "This is bad news for Ukraine."
The choice of venue for the summit raised concerns among other European leaders about the outcome of the planned talks. Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin at the Alaska summit, securing him a diplomatic victory after years of "coldness" over the war, the publication notes.
However, the US president failed to achieve a ceasefire, which he considered a key goal of the meeting. Putin made no concessions and even spoke first to reporters at a podium next to Trump after the talks, which is usually the host's privilege. He then intensified his attacks on Ukraine, the publication writes.
Within days, Zelenskyy and leading European leaders rushed to Washington to persuade Trump to support Ukraine. They secured a commitment to join security guarantees within any peace agreement and to postpone discussions of possible territorial exchanges with Russia until later.
One senior EU official expressed hope that Trump would remember that after the Alaska summit, Putin did the opposite of what Trump had hoped for.
Inspired by his success in achieving a breakthrough in the cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel, Trump again turned his attention to Russia's war against Ukraine, which he famously promised to end within a day of returning to the presidential chair during his election campaign.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the announcement of the Budapest summit gives him hope for the seriousness of Trump's intentions to establish peace in Ukraine.
"If the 20-point plan for ending the war in Gaza is to serve as a model for the success of this presidency, then he will continue to focus on Ukraine and strive for an end to the war there," Merz said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published on Friday.
"President Trump is aware of his responsibility. He also knows what options he has," the chancellor said.