Kyiv
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the United States should agree on a joint plan to stop Russia\u2019s war before starting peace talks with the Kremlin.
\nAfter a 90-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he expected to meet the Russian leader in Saudi Arabia for talks to end the war \u2013 sparking fears Kyiv would be frozen out.
\nOn Thursday, Zelenskyy told reporters in Ukraine that it was \u201cnot very pleasant\u201d that Trump had called Putin before speaking to him, adding that the US president had said he wanted to speak to both leaders together.
\nThe Ukrainian leader, who is to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Munich on Friday, said he wanted to hammer out a \u201cplan to stop Putin\u201d with the US before any truce talks happen.
\n\u201cWe, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,\u201d Zelenskyy added.
\nKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Ukraine would participate \u201cone way or another\u201d in any talks to end the war but the separate US-Russian talks are on track, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
\n\u2018Any quick fix is a dirty deal\u2019
\nAt a NATO meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Ukraine\u2019s defence minister assured his country\u2019s backers that Kyiv would keep standing strong against Russia.
\nEuropean officials have also taken a tough line in public towards Trump\u2019s peace overture, saying any peace agreement would be impossible to implement unless they and the Ukrainians are included in negotiating it.
\nIn a blunt address to reporters at the NATO talks, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas insisted that no deal \u201cbehind our backs\u201d could work as she accused Washington of \u201cappeasement\u201d towards Russia.
\n\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started because it plays to Russia\u2019s court and it is what they want,\u201d she said. \u201cAny quick fix is a dirty deal. It will simply not work.\u201d
\nAntonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the EU\u2019s 27 nations, warned that \u201cpeace cannot be a simple ceasefire\u201d.
\n\u201cRussia must no longer be a threat to Ukraine, to Europe, to international security,\u201d Costa said.
\nUS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO meeting in Brussels, denied that Trump\u2019s plan is a betrayal of Kyiv\u2019s three-year war effort against Russia.
\n\u201cThere is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace,\u201d the Pentagon chief said.
\n\u201cMake no mistake, President Trump will not allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into \u2018Uncle Sucker\u2019,\u201d he said and added that Europe should be primarily responsible for defence on the European continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kyiv Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the United States should agree on a joint plan to stop Russia\u2019s war before starting peace talks with the Kremlin. After a 90-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he expected to meet the Russian leader in Saudi Arabia for talks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-461672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n