{"id":4356,"date":"2025-11-24T19:52:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/western-leaders-to-build-on-trump-plan-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:16:30","slug":"western-leaders-to-build-on-trump-plan-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/western-leaders-to-build-on-trump-plan-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Western leaders to build on Trump plan to end the war in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/figure>\n

By Sean Rayment<\/em><\/p>\n

Nato leaders hope to push forward the Ukraine peace plan, as Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last weekend\u2019s talks were \u201ca major step towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n

Expected at the virtual meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, co-hosted by the UK and France, are leaders from European countries and potentially US President Donald Trump, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

This meeting will provide an opportunity to review discussions held in Geneva on Sunday between US, European and Ukrainian negotiators, the Elysee said in a statement. Meanwhile, talks continue ahead of an apparent Thursday deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding on the momentum and work undertaken over the past several months within the Coalition, this meeting will reaffirm the commitment of its members to building a just and lasting peace underpinned by robust security guarantees for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talks have intensified over the past week to find a way to end nearly four years of war in which more than one million people have been killed.<\/p>\n

But with the joint US-Russian 28-point peace plan apparently crossing several red lines for Ukraine, including the surrender of key territory in the Donbas region, Mr Starmer\u2019s spokesman said there remained a number of \u201coutstanding issues\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking over the weekend at a summit in Angola, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the plan \u201cstipulated a lot of things for Europe\u201d, such as how to use Russian frozen assets which are mostly located in Belgium. \u201cThere are many things that cannot simply be an American proposal and presuppose broader consultation,\u201d Mr Macron said.<\/p>\n

Britain has signalled that it does not want to see Ukraine forced into an agreement that weakens it as a state and empowers Russia. \u201cWhile diplomatic efforts continue, we will stand steadfast with Ukraine to keep it in the fight and ensure the Ukrainian people can defend themselves during ongoing barbaric attacks,\u201d the Prime Minister\u2019s spokesman said. \u201cThe important thing is the talks are making progress. We are very supportive of that. They are a major step towards securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

European Union leaders also held emergency talks about Ukraine on Monday. Leaked drafts show they have attempted to include in the Trump proposal negotiations about Ukrainian territories and security guarantees in the event of a renewed Russian invasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe direction is positive, and we commend the efforts of presidents Zelenskyy and Trump and their teams,\u201d European Council President Antonio Costa said. But he also warned that \u201cissues that concern directly the European Union, such as sanctions, enlargement or immobilised assets, require the full involvement and decision by the European Union\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the significant issues for Europeans is a US demand to use 100 billion dollars of frozen Russian assets for American-led reconstruction efforts in Ukraine after the war. The US would receive 50 per cent of the profits from this venture.<\/p>\n

Plans for the European Commission to seize these assets to issue a 161 billion dollar reparation loan to Ukraine were derailed in October by Brussels, which demanded that all EU countries contribute if Russia successfully sues to recover its money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the EU rushes to seize Russia\u2019s central bank assets before Washington grabs them, the bloc may be able to drastically curb Trump\u2019s interest in a bad deal,\u201d said Agathe Demarais, senior policy fellow at the ECFR think tank.<\/p>\n

In parallel, Mr Zelenskyy separately said he would \u201ccontinue working with partners, especially the United States, to look for compromises that will strengthen but not weaken us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moscow said it was aware of continuing \u201cadjustments\u201d to Mr Trump\u2019s plan, which had been welcomed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. \u201cWe will wait,\u201d a Kremlin representative said.<\/p>\n

A joint statement issued by the White House and Ukraine on Sunday said \u201cthe parties drafted an updated and refined peace framework\u201d. The final decision on this framework is to be made by the two countries\u2019 leaders.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in Geneva on Sunday for talks, said the draft kept changing and refused to comment on specific details.<\/p>\n

Mr Rubio described Mr Trump as \u201cquite pleased at the reports we have given him on the amount of progress that has been made\u201d. Mr Trump had earlier in the day accused Ukraine of being ungrateful for US support.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump had previously set a Thursday deadline for Mr Zelenskyy to accept a peace plan, but Mr Rubio said the deadline might fluctuate. \u201cWhether it is Thursday, whether it is Friday, whether it is Wednesday, whether it is Monday of the following week, we want it to be soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined Europe\u2019s red lines on any peace plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine\u2019s territory and sovereignty must be respected. Only Ukraine, as a sovereign country, can make decisions regarding its armed forces. The choice of their destiny is in their own hands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s plan limited Ukrainian military personnel to 600,000. It also required Ukraine never to join Nato, despite promises made by the previous Biden administration. A draft circulated by Europeans did not mention this but said joining Nato required unanimity from its members. It added that this unanimity does not currently exist.<\/p>\n

Echoing other European leaders\u2019 insistence that Europe must play a central role in peace talks, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday that \u201cthe sovereignty of Ukraine may not be questioned\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sean Rayment Nato leaders hope to push forward the Ukraine peace plan, as Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last weekend\u2019s talks were \u201ca major step towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine\u201d. Expected at the virtual meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, co-hosted by the UK and France, are leaders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4358,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4356\/revisions\/4358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/national\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}