Ukraine peace talks: Germany calls for European involvement

French President Emmanuel Macron said a peace deal for Ukraine must not play into Russian aims.

"Peace that is a capitulation" would be "bad news for everyone," Macron said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday.

He said any peace deal would hinge on the credibility of Russia's commitment to a ceasefire.

"The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably, and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis," Macron added. "After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia."

Trump has said US and Russian officials would meet in Munich on Friday and that Ukraine was also invited to attend the talks expected to address Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The meeting will likely happen on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC). 

"They're having a meeting in Munich tomorrow. Russia's going to be there with our people. Ukraine is also invited by the way. Not sure exactly who's going to be there from any country, but high level people from Russia, from Ukraine and from the United States," Trump told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy is scheduled to be at MSC, but one of his advisers on Thursday said the Ukrainian leader does not expect to meet the Russian side during the conference.

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are part of the US delegation in Munich.

US President Donald Trump said Ukraine will be "part of" negotiations to end Russia's brutal three-year war in Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he was convinced the Russian leader "wants peace." "I think he would tell me if he didn't," he added.

Russia initiated its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Trump also said he would like Russia to return to the Group of Seven nations, telling reporters it was a mistake to expel them.

Russia was a member of the G7 club of industrialized democracies, then known as the G8, until Moscow was expelled following its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014.

On Wednesday, Trump announced plans to begin peace talks following separate phone calls Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who was in Paris for meetings on the future of Ukraine and Syria, said that a sustainable peace for Ukraine needs "a long-term solution — not short-term deals."

"As Europeans, we want to work towards this together with Ukraine and the USA. Because the future of our continent is at stake," she wrote on X.

She added that other regions of the world are watching very closely to see whether the principle of law or that of force will prevail in Europe.

"That is why we need lasting security from Putin's Russia — a Russia that will never again dare to attack European peace," Baerbock said.

She stressed that Europe will continue to provide Ukraine with intensive support — political, military, economic and humanitarian — and will invest massively in its own security.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that forcing a deal to end the war with Russia on Ukraine would not lead to lasting peace.

The war in Ukraine "must end as quickly as possible," Scholz said, but the chancellor added that "a Russian victory or a Ukrainian collapse will not lead to peace, on the contrary."

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said it was important for Russian President Vladimir Putin to understand that the West is "united" as peace talks begin to end Russia's war with Ukraine.

"I don't know what is exactly on President Putin's mind, of course," Rutte told reporters. "He is a strong negotiator, he is very unpredictable, but in the end if we want to get a peace deal we need him there."

Rutte added that Ukraine would be involved in some way in any peace deal, but noted that Alliance leaders had never promised Ukraine that it would become a NATO member if it forged a peace deal with Russia.

"We have to make sure that Vladimir Putin never ever tries again to attack Ukraine, that is crucial ... but it has never been a promise to Ukraine that as part of peace deal they would be part of NATO," Rutte said. 

The Kremlin said that that Ukraine would participate "one way or another" in any talks to end the three-year war, but there would be a separate US-Russian track to the talks.

"One way or another, of course, Ukraine will participate in the negotiations. There will be both a bilateral Russian-American track of dialogue, and a track that, of course, will be connected to Ukraine's involvement," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview on state TV.

He also said that preparations for a meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump could take up to several months, but both sides agreed that the Saudi capital of Riyadh was a suitable location.

Trump and Putin spoke for more than an hour on Wednesday, the first known direct contact between US and Russian presidents since Putin had a phone call with Joe Biden shortly before sending his army into Ukraine in February 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would not accept any bilateral agreements on its fate reached by Moscow and Washington in its absence. He also called for Europe to have a seat at the negotiating table at the end of the war.

"We cannot accept it, as an independent country, any agreements (made) without us. I articulate this very clearly to our partners — any bilateral negotiations about Ukraine, not on other topics, but any bilateral talks about Ukraine without us — we will not accept," Zelenskyy said during a visit to a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine.

"Today it's important that everything does not go according to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's plan, in which he wants to do everything to make his negotiations bilateral (with the US)," he told reporters.

Zelenskyy also said that during his conversation with Trump on Wednesday, the US president told him that he wanted to talk to both the Russian and Ukrainian leaders at the same time.

"He never mentioned in a conversation that Putin and Russia was a priority. We, today, trust these words. For us it is very important to preserve the support of the United States of America," Zelenskyy said.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a face-to-face meeting between US President Trump and Russian counterpart Putin was needed "promptly," after the pair spoke over the phone and Trump said they agreed to "immediately" start peace negotiations in Ukraine.

"There is definitely a need to organize such a meeting quite promptly, the heads of state have a lot to talk about," Peskov said.

On Wednesday, after the phone call, Trump said he expected to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia.

"Certainly, all issues related to security on the European continent, especially in those aspects that concern our country, the Russian Federation, should be discussed comprehensively, and we expect that to be the case," Peskov said. When asked whether European countries would be represented in peace talks, Peskov said it was too early to discuss the format.

He added that both Washington and Moscow shared a political will to end the three-year war in Ukraine.

"There is agreement that a peaceful negotiated settlement is possible," Peskov said. 

"The previous US administration held the view that everything needed to be done to keep the war going. The current administration, as far as we understand, adheres to the point of view that everything must be done to stop the war and for peace to prevail," he added. "We are more impressed with the position of the current administration, and we are open to dialogue," he said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that "no decisions should be made over Ukraine's head," after US President Donald Trump said he agreed with Russia's Vladimir Putin to "immediately" start negotiations on Ukraine's future.

Speaking to Deutschlandfunk public radio on Thursday, Baerbock stressed the need for strong security guarantees for Ukraine to secure a long-term peace truce.

"It is not peace if what happened in 2014 happens, a preparation for an even more brutal offensive," Baerbock said, referring to Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula . "That's why we need security guarantees that work."

Baerbock was asked whether she was considering sending German troops to secure a potential ceasefire. She said it was fully clear that no troops could be sent alone "if there is no security at all."

The German top diplomat however floated the idea of a United Nations-backed "Blue Helmet" mission involving troops from other countries and approved by the UN Security Council.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized that peace must not be imposed on Ukraine, just as much as any solution must involve the United States.

Speaking in an interview with Politico released on Thursday, Scholz said: "The next task is to ensure that there is no imposed peace." He added that "it is very clear to me that there must be no solution that does not also involve the US."

Though the statements were released after US President Trump's controversial call with Russia's Putin, Politico clarified that the interview was conducted on Wednesday morning, before Trump said he had agreed with Putin to start negotiations to end the Ukraine war "immediately."  .

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that an agreement between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to launch peace negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine was "certainly not a betrayal" of Kyiv. 

"There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace," Hegseth said ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. 

"That will require both sides recognizing things they don't want to," he said.

Hegseth has previously said it was not realistic for Ukraine to regain all its territory or become a member of NATO.  

In response, Germany's defense minister, Boris Pistorius, has said it is "regrettable" that Washington has made "concessions" to Russia ahead of possible peace negotiations.

"In my view it would have been better to speak about a possible NATO membership for Ukraine or possible losses of territory at the negotiating table," Pistorius said. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for his part, has stressed that the US must be involved in any solution to the conflict, though there should be no "dictated peace" for Ukraine.

 "It is very clear to me that there must be no solution that does not also involve the US," Scholz said in an interview with Politico released on Thursday.
 

NATO chief Mark Rutte has said Ukraine must be involved in any peace talks aimed at stopping Russia's invasion of its territory after US President Donald Trump held talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on starting negotiations.

 "Of course, this is crucial — (when) we talk about Ukraine, that Ukraine is closely involved in everything happening about Ukraine," Rutte told journalists as alliance defense ministers gathered for a Brussels meeting to discuss the conflict.

Rutte said it was vital that any "peace deal is enduring, that Putin knows that this is the end, that he can never again try to capture a piece of Ukraine."

Rutte's remarks were echoed by UK Defense Secretary John Healey, who told reporters: "There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine. And Ukraine's voice must be at the heart of any talks."

Their comments come amid fears on the part of many observers that Washington may have offered concessions to Moscow that go against Ukraine's interests as a sovereign state.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has called for European states to be also involved in peace talks.

Europe "will have to live directly" with the consequences of any peace deal, so "it goes without saying that we must be part of the negotiations," he said.