Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda will on Tuesday take part in a remote European Council meeting to discuss the outcome of talks held at the White House on Monday.
European Council President António Costa said on Monday that the EU’s 27 leaders would hold a video conference on Tuesday to discuss Ukraine and the results of the high-stakes talks in Washington.
“I have convened a video conference of the members of the European Council for tomorrow at 13:00 CEST for a debriefing on today’s meetings in Washington, D.C., about Ukraine. Together with the US, the EU will continue working towards a lasting peace that safeguards Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests,” he wrote on X.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. They were later joined by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, along with NATO chief Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
During an Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, Trump said a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was “unnecessary.” But after an hour of closed-door talks with EU leaders and Zelensky, he told reporters in the East Room that “all of us would obviously prefer the immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace.”
Trump added that he favored a ceasefire because it would “immediately stop the killing,” but stressed that a peace agreement between the two countries was now “very attainable.”
The US president also said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, adding that the Russian leader had agreed to them, while again ruling out Kyiv’s long-standing ambition to join NATO.
Trump said the guarantees “would be provided by various European countries, in coordination with the United States of America.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff also referred to security guarantees, saying on Sunday that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to “robust security guarantees” for Ukraine during a meeting in Alaska on Friday.
Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine, more than three years after the Kremlin launched its invasion, had been one of Trump’s main demands ahead of the Alaska summit, which Ukraine and its European allies did not attend.
But after the summit produced no breakthrough, Trump ruled out an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine — a move seen as favoring Putin, who has long pressed for direct negotiations on a final peace deal.
Source: BNS
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