Ukraine, EU demand involvement in U.S.-Russia peace talks: ‘Dirty deal’

European officials took an exceptionally firm line in public towards Trump's peace overture, saying they and the Ukrainians must be included in any negotiations.

Kyiv and its European allies demanded on Thursday that they be included in any peace negotiations, after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and said Ukraine could neither have all of its land back nor join NATO.

Russia’s financial markets soared and the price of Ukraine’s debt rose at the prospect of the first peace talks since the early months of Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two, soon to enter its fourth year.

But Trump’s unilateral overture to Putin, accompanied by apparent concessions on Ukraine’s principal demands, raised alarm for both Kyiv and the European allies in NATO who said they feared the White House might make a deal without them.

“We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

He said Putin aimed to make his negotiations bilateral with the United States, and it was important not to allow that.

European officials took an exceptionally firm line in public towards Trump’s peace overture, saying any agreement would be impossible to implement unless they and the Ukrainians were included in negotiating it.

“Any quick fix is a dirty deal,” European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. She also strongly denounced the apparent concessions offered in advance.

“Why are we giving them (Russia) everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?” said Kallas. “It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”