Western capitals are making a potentially crucial week for European security, as the US and Russia begin talks to end the war in Ukraine and European leaders to hold an urgent meeting to respond to the speeding negotiations that are happening without them.
Europe’s most powerful leaders will gather in Paris on Monday for crisis talks in Ukraine and the future of European defense, driven by Donald Trump’s decision to open peace talks with Russia. These talks will officially begin in Saudi Arabia this week when Trump’s high diplomat Marco Rubio sits with Sergei Lavrov, Russia.
The Rubio-Lavrov meeting aims to lay the foundations for Trump to meet Vladimir Putin less than a week after the US leader shook European capitals by agreeing with his Russian counterpart to begin peace talks.
Will underline the lack of European contribution to negotiations that can eventually reshape the continent’s security architecture.
“This is the beginning of the beginning. Things are eventually moving,” Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, told Financial Times. “Are Europe’s tectonic plates changing?”
Referring to the full -scale occupation date of Russia, he added: “I think the world order began to move on February 24, 2022, and we are now seeing the direction it can go.”
Leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and leaders of EU institutions and NATO will gather in Paris tomorrow at the invitation of President Emmanuel Macron.
They will discuss concrete plans aimed at protecting European defense, despite the future US engagement, said officials informed about preparations, along with the best way to support Ukraine and strengthen their negotiating position.
Starmer said it was a “moment once in a generation for our national security, where we engage with the reality of the world today”.
“Insure that crazy is this moving,” said a Western official informed about the talks. “All (Europe) should do is give Ukraine as much as possible, in order to say better” no “to things destroyed in her throat (by Sh.ba and Russia) . “
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said Trump’s decision to open talks was a “powerful signal we will try to solve problems through dialogue and talk about peace than war” in comments broadcast by state TV on Sunday .
European leaders in Paris will discuss ideas including a possible setting of European troops in Ukraine to be placed, not in a line of future weapons, as a “security force”, two officials said.
But there is uncertainty about the role that the US would play in the possible security guarantee of any NATO force in Ukraine. Trump’s team has ruled out the deployment of US troops in Ukraine, but European officials say the US has not ruled out the possibility of providing external support for any deciding by NATO allies.
Many European governments are also concerned to respond to a US request this week for specific details about weapons, money and peacekeeping troops that they would be prepared to send to Ukraine after the conflict, according to numerous officials informed about discussions between capitals.
“The general feeling is that this is a good exercise in thinking about what everyone can offer, but that the response to the US must be collective,” one officials said.
Stubb said: “Hope everything that comes out of Paris is something that is attractive to Americans so that we have more skin in the game.”
European leaders and diplomats spent most of their time at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend trying to analyze the roles of various members of the Trump negotiating team, and how they can eventually form the President’s approach.
A senior European official said he had “95 percent agreement” with Keith Kellogg, a 80-year-old retired general appointed as Ukraine envoy of Trump, who described Russia as “enemy”.
But the official warned that the views of Kellogg, who was not appointed as a member of the negotiating team with four Trump men, did not necessarily withdraw with those of Rubio, for example, “who may not see it in the same way” .
At a meeting of the G7 Foreign Ministers in Munich, Rubio was far less future with his views on Ukraine, said three people informed about the discussions. Two said he noted that talks with Lavrov would focus on logistics and planning for a Putin-Trump meeting, and would not go into details of negotiating positions.
“With the previous administration (under Joe Biden) there was no dialogue, only endless war,” Peskov said on Sunday. Trump’s attitude “should be more impressive for any person or state with a straight mind,” he added.
Peskov also said Russia would “defend its interests so as not to be seduced by any false promise” during talks with SH.BA
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Munich, Leila Abboud in Paris and Lucy Fisher in London
