(Brussels) The European Allies of Ukraine displayed their desire to block around the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by announcing that they would accompany him to the White House on Monday for a meeting with Donald Trump.
This decision took place on Sunday a few hours before a videoconferencing of the “volunteer coalition”, which brings together Kyiv support, on the outcome of the recent Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
“At the request of President Zelensky, I will participate tomorrow in the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House,” said the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, on the social network X.
In the wake of this surprise announcement, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO chief Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb confirmed their presence on Monday in Washington.
Mme Von der Leyen also announced that the Ukrainian president was expected in Brussels this Sunday where he will participate in a videoconference planned with European leaders.
President Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the German Chancellor must bring together at 9 am (Eastern time) in videoconferencing the “coalition of volunteers” allies of Kyiv, which brings together most of the major European countries, the EU, NATO, and non -European countries like Canada.
The allies of Ukraine should tackle the issue of security guarantees that would be granted to Kyiv as part of a possible peace agreement. According to diplomats, they should also examine what the contours of such an agreement between Ukraine and Russia could be.
Safety guarantee
These diplomatic initiatives intervene after a summit in anchorage between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin having led to a cease-fire agreement or new sanctions against Moscow.
Photo Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik supplied by Reuters
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska on August 15, 2025.
President Zelensky and his European allies were in favor of a prior cease-fire, but Donald Trump put forward a peace agreement, on which he will give his hosts on Monday in Washington.
Coming back from Alaska, Trump had mentioned for the benefit of Kyiv a security guarantee similar to that of article 5 of NATO, apart from the framework of the Atlantic Alliance, considered by Moscow as an existential threat at its borders.
According to the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, it is a question of defining “a collective security clause which would allow Ukraine to obtain the support of all its partners, including the United States, ready to act in the event that it is again attacked”.
The American president also supports a proposal from Russia strengthening his presence in eastern Ukraine, an official in charge of telephone exchanges between Donald Trump and European leaders told AFP.
According to this anonymous source, the Russian president “asks in fact that Ukraine leaves the Donbass” and therefore completely yields this territory bringing together the regions of Donetsk and Louhansk in eastern Ukraine. He also offers a fronted gel in the regions of Kherson and Zaporijjia (South).
A few months after launching its invasion of Ukraine, Russia had proclaimed in September 2022 the annexation of these four Ukrainian regions, even if its troops still control none in full.
Mr. Zelensky has so far rejected any territorial concession, saying he had his hands bound by the Ukrainian Constitution.
On Saturday, he said he was “grateful to the invitation” to the White House, while warning that the refusal of a cease-fire by Moscow “Complicated (Ait) the situation”.
Donald Trump also suggested a tripartite summit with MM. Putin and Zelensky if “everything works well” when he received the Ukrainian president, six months after humiliating him with his vice-president JD Vance in the oval office, a television scene that had amazed the world.
