The leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom have welcomed the US effort to end the war in Ukraine but stressed that any agreement affecting Europe must involve its partners, underscoring sharp divergences with Washington’s 28-point peace plan.
In a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they valued the Trump administration’s push to broker an end to the conflict, a German government spokesman said.
At the same time, the leaders underlined that “any agreement affecting European states, the European Union or Nato requires the approval of European partners or a consensus among the Allies”, according to a written statement released after the call.
The four vowed to continue pursuing the goal of safeguarding “vital European and Ukrainian interests” in the long term, including the demand for a ceasefire along the current front lines as a prerequisite for peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s armed forces must remain capable of effectively defending the country’s sovereignty in the meantime, they added, according to Berlin.
The plan, leaked earlier this week and which Russia says it was not consulted on, would require Kyiv to cross several of its red lines: sharply reducing the size of its army to 600,000 personnel, ceding large swathes of territory and enshrining a ban on Nato membership in its constitution.
Specifically, it calls for Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the parts of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk that they currently control.
Furthermore, Washington would be expected to recognise the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk, as de facto Russian territory.
In exchange the agreeing to these concessions, Ukraine was promised unspecified security guarantees from Washington.
In a social media post after Friday’s phone call with European powers, Zelensky said Ukraine was “working on the document prepared by the American side”.
“This must be a plan that ensures a real and dignified peace”, he said, adding that Kyiv and European capital were “coordinating closely”.
Zelensky was only presented with the peace plan on Thursday — a day after it began to be leaked in the media — during a meeting in Kyiv with senior US military officials and diplomats.
In a video message afterwards, the Ukrainian leader said his team was willing to work “constructively” on “points of the plan to end the war”, without elaborating on the changes being sought.
Kyiv wasn’t the only stakeholder not consulted by Washington.
The US has yet to share it proposal with the European Union, European Council President António Costa said on Friday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she will hold consultations with leaders on the sidelines of this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa, which the US is not participating in.
Even though the 28-point peace plan includes many of Russia’s demands, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denied they had consulted with the US on it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia has yet to officially receive the draft.
While Russia believes the plan contains some new input, “there was no factual discussion of these points”, Peskov said when asked whether Russia had been involved in drafting the positions.
He justified the ongoing Russian attacks on Ukraine by saying that it was necessary to “convince” Zelensky “to negotiate now”, warning that Ukraine’s room for manoeuvre would only become smaller.
Ukraine has long pressed for a ceasefire along the current frontlines as a prerequisite for negotiations towards a final peace settlement — a position Moscow rejects. — dpa
