European leaders have reaffirmed their support for Kyiv, calling for “ironclad security guarantees” for Ukraine and voicing support for a trilateral summit to negotiate the end of the war.
“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," The European leaders said in a statement on Saturday after being briefed by Donald Trump about the summit held in Alaska between the US and Russian leaders on Friday.
The statement signed by the European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, called for more pressure on Russia to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table. "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,” the statement reads.
The EU leaders stressed that Ukraine must have “ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity and also welcomed Donald Trump’s statement that the US is prepared to give security guarantees.”
The EU leaders noted that the next step must be holding of talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and that they were ready to work with Trump and Zelenskiy towards a three-way summit with European support. Commenting on the rumors about “land swapping” inside Ukraine in exchange for the end of hostilities, the EU leaders said: “It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force."
The strong-worded statement is the reflection of concerns among Ukraine’s Western allies of the closed-door meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska on Friday.
