European leaders and Ukraine’s allies issued a carefully worded warning to U.S. President Donald Trump early Tuesday over his lukewarm support for Kyiv, backing his call to halt fighting but rejecting any suggestion of territorial concessions to Moscow.
In a joint statement signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders, the group declared themselves “united in our desire for a just and lasting peace.”
The leaders said they “strongly support President Trump’s position that the fighting should stop immediately,” suggesting that the current line of contact could serve as a starting point for negotiations, but they warned that “international borders must not be changed by force,” — a veiled rebuke to Trump’s openness to freezing the war along Russian-occupied front lines.
The statement comes just days ahead of a critical European Council meeting on Thursday, where leaders will debate using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine and tightening sanctions on Moscow.
Zelenskyy and members of the so-called Coalition of the Willing are then set to gather Friday in London to coordinate further military and financial support.
Trump said late Sunday that the war should be frozen along the current battle lines, a proposal that would leave Moscow in control of vast areas of occupied Ukrainian territory. The current front line cuts through the industrial Donbas region, in Ukraine’s east, where fighting remains intense.
His comments came just days after a reportedly tense White House meeting with Zelenskyy, during which Trump initially suggested Kyiv should consider ceding land to Moscow to end the conflict, according to a person familiar with the talks.
He later denied pushing Ukraine to surrender the entire Donbas region to Russia, insisting instead that the region should be divided as it is. “I think 78 percent of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now,” he said.
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