European leaders back Putin-Trump-Zelensky meeting

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BRUSSELS - European leaders on Saturday expressed support for a three-way summit between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia's Vladimir Putin and US leader Donald Trump, after a US-Russia summit failed to produce a ceasefire.

A statement, signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, insisted on maintaining pressure on Russia until peace was achieved, including through sanctions.

The European leaders also insisted Moscow "cannot have a veto" on Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO.

Russia has made clear it will not tolerate Kyiv's membership of the defence alliance. But the leaders said they were "ready to work ... towards a trilateral summit with European support".

Friday's Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska ended without the US president extracting concrete commitments from Putin to halt Russia's invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022.

"We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia's war economy until there is a just and lasting peace," said the European joint statement.

European leaders had been uneasy over Trump's diplomatic outreach to Putin, arguing that Zelensky should have been involved in the Alaska summit.

In a separate statement, Starmer praised Trump's efforts as bringing "us closer than ever before to ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine".

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- who has friendly ties with both Trump and Putin -- hailed the summit.

"For years, we have watched the two biggest nuclear powers dismantle the framework of their cooperation and shoot unfriendly messages back and forth. That has now come to an end. Today the world is a safer place than it was yesterday," Orban said on X.

But Macron, writing on X, cautioned against what he said was Russia's "well-documented tendency to not keep its own commitments". He called for any future peace deal to have "unbreakable" security guarantees.

He also argued for increased pressure on Russia until "a solid and durable peace" had been achieved.

The European leaders welcomed what they called "security guarantees" made by Trump without giving details.

A diplomatic source told AFP that Trump had offered Ukraine guarantees similar to -- but separate from -- NATO membership.

"Strong security guarantees that protect Ukrainian and European vital security interests are essential," European Commission chief von der Leyen said on X.