Top Trump administration officials on Sunday defended their upcoming direct talks with Moscow over ending the Russia-Ukraine war, even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that he will “never accept” a deal negotiated without Kyiv present at the table.
With President Trump moving quickly on his promise to end the conflict, which is approaching its fourth year, radically different narratives emerged around the world. In the U.S., officials argued that only Mr. Trump is capable of crafting a permanent end to an otherwise endless and stalemated war, while the Kremlin said that the upcoming U.S.-Russia meeting — and last week’s phone call between Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — shows that the frosty relationship between the two old Cold War foes may be thawing.
But there was a sharply different view across Europe, where many countries were closely aligned with the Biden administration in backing Kyiv after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Mr. Zelenskyy said he fears an emboldened Mr. Putin could launch direct attacks against NATO if Ukraine is lost, while leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Poland and other key European players are set to hold an emergency meeting Monday in Paris as it appears they’re being frozen out of peace talks.
Against that backdrop, administration officials made the case on Sunday that it’s time for all sides to accept the reality of the Russia-Ukraine war.
“This can’t be ended on the battlefield. This has turned into a World War I-style meat grinder of human beings,” White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told “Fox News Sunday.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Saturday. Mr. Rubio, along with Mr. Waltz, is expected to lead a U.S. delegation to meet with high-level Russian officials in Saudi Arabia in the coming days, according to numerous media reports Sunday, laying the groundwork for a possible Putin-Trump summit down the line.
Mr. Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance and other administration officials met Friday with Mr. Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, just hours after Mr. Vance delivered a blistering speech heavy on criticism of Europe. The vice president specifically said that he views “the threat from within” Europe, and what he framed as a dangerous crackdown on free speech and conservative views in the political realm, as a greater threat to the continent than Russia.
That meeting came amid confusion over the opening U.S. position heading into peace talks, specifically whether the Trump administration has already abandoned hope of Ukraine recapturing territory seized by Russian forces and whether Washington has ruled out Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance, a longtime goal for Kyiv.
Russian forces have largely enjoyed the initiative in recent months, making slow but steady gains across a more than 600-mile front in eastern Ukraine. But there have also been signs the Russian advances have bogged down and Ukraine’s military announced over the weekend it had retaken at least one village in the Donbas region from Russian forces. The strategic town of Prokrovsk, which many expected to fall to Moscow’s forces in a matter of days, remains in Ukrainian control, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
“Russian advances may be slowing south of Pokrovsk due to degradation among frontline Russian units and intensified Ukrainian drone operations in the area,” the ISW wrote in a weekend summary of the latest fighting.
Regardless of the specifics of the U.S. opening offer, Mr. Zelenskyy made clear that his country won’t accept any deal imposed on it.
“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never. And our people, never. And our adults, and children, and everybody, it can’t be so. The war in Ukraine is against us, and it is our human losses,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday.
He also said that Russia could use territory in its ally Belarus — which shares a border with Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, in addition to Ukraine — as a launchpad from which to carry out future attacks on NATO member nations, delivering a thinly veiled warning that appeasement of Mr. Putin now will have serious consequences later.
“We believe that Putin will wage war against NATO,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.
Emergency meeting in Europe
Direct talks between the U.S. and Russia have alarmed leaders in Ukraine and across Europe who fear that the Trump administration intends to essentially freeze Ukraine out of any peace talks and instead negotiate unilaterally with Moscow.
Retired U.S. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, left open the idea of Ukraine being at the table but seemed to rule out other European powers being present, saying, “I think that’s not going to happen” when pressed whether Europeans would be part of the talks.
“You can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking,” he said during an event at the Munich Security Conference.
Mr. Rubio, who like Mr. Waltz backed aid and support for Ukraine in Congress before joining the administration, offered something of a clarification to that position Sunday. He stressed that it’s too soon to know whether Russia is truly serious about ending the conflict on terms fair to Ukraine and acceptable to the U.S., or if Moscow is using negotiations as a delaying tactic. If the talks prove to be serious, Mr. Rubio said, Ukraine and Europe will be involved.
“One phone call does not solve a war as complex as this one,” Mr. Rubio told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program.
“Ultimately it will reach a point when Europe, if it’s real negotiations, and we’re not there yet but if that were to happen, Ukraine will have to be involved because they were the ones who were invaded,” he said. “And the Europeans will have to be involved in it because they have [economic] sanctions on Putin and Russia as well, and they’ve contributed to this effort. We’re not there yet.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has called an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris on Monday to discuss the fast-moving events and forge a united strategy for the continent’s major powers. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is traveling to Washington later this week for one-on-one talks with Mr. Trump, has confirmed he would attend the Paris meeting.
Mr. Starmer framed the current moment as a potentially historic one for the continent.
“This is a once-in-a-generation moment for our national security where we engage with the reality of the world today and the threat we face from Russia,” he said Sunday, according to British media. “It’s clear Europe must take on a greater role in NATO as we work with the United States to secure Ukraine’s future and face down the threat we face from Russia.”
For its part, the Kremlin celebrated the Trump administration’s approach.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that the Trump-Putin telephone call “sends a powerful message that from now on we will try to solve problems through dialogue. And from now on, we will talk about peace, not war.”
Although Mr. Trump had a lengthy call with Mr. Zelenskyy after his surprise talk with Mr. Putin last week, the U.S. seems to be putting pressure on Ukraine from multiple angles.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a gathering of NATO defense ministers last week that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to expect to get all of its territory back. Including the Crimean peninsula seized in 2014, Russian forces occupy about 20% of Ukraine’s pre-war territory, and have formally annexed parts of eastern and southern Ukraine as sovereign Russian territory.
And Mr. Hegseth indicated that Washington will not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO as part of current peace talks, though he later seemed to walk those comments back amid strong criticism, including from some high-ranking Republican senators.
The U.S. also reportedly presented Mr. Zelenskyy late last week with a plan for the U.S. to gain access to Ukraine’s supply of rare earth minerals in light of the massive military and financial aid Washington has provided in the war. The Ukrainian president said he rejected the plan.
“I didn’t let the ministers sign a relevant agreement, because in my view it is not ready to protect us, our interest,” Mr. Zelenskyy told the Associated Press at the Munich conference.
Amid the pressure on Ukraine, a key question now is what leverage the administration will try to wield over Russia. Gen. Kellogg, the special envoy for Ukraine, offered some clues during his own comments in Munich over the weekend.
“What is driving Russia? It’s really a petrol state. Seventy percent of the money they are getting to fund this war is coming from petrol, oil and gas,” he said during a panel discussion at the conference, according to media reports.
“So what does [Mr. Putin] have to give up? Well, maybe he’ll give up his oil revenue and we’ll force him to do it, because what you do is start employing sanctions that break the economic back” of Russia, he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.