Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky won’t accept peace deal if Kyiv ignored after Kremlin-US talks snub

Donald Trump on Sunday said he believed Vladimir Putin is eager for a deal, while also noting that Russia has historically impressed on the battlefield.

« I think he wants to stop fighting, » Mr Trump said. « They have a big powerful machine, you understand that they defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon. They’ve been fighting a long time. »

Heather Conley, a deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Europe during Republican President George W Bush’s administration, said that with Mr Trump’s current approach to Moscow, the US appears to be « seeking to create a new international approach based on a modern-day concert of great powers”.

« As in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is only for the great powers to decide the fate of nations and to take — either by purchase or force — that which strengthens the great powers’ economic and security interests, » Ms Conley said.

« Each of these powers posit claims or coerce countries in their respective regional spheres of influence.

« There is some debate inside the administration about its developing approach to Moscow, with some more in favor of a rapid rapprochement and others wary that Mr Putin is looking to fray the Euro-Atlantic alliance as he aims to reclaim Russian status and wield greater influence on the continent, according to the US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump said last week that he would like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

White House officials on Sunday pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation regarding a peace deal for Ukraine.

Officials said Donald Trump spoke by phone in recent days with French president Emmanuel Macron and is expected to consult prime minister Keir Starmer this week.

During his visits to Munich and Paris, vice president JD Vance held talks with Mr Macron, British foreign secretary David Lammy, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte as well as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

« Now they may not like some of this sequencing that is going on in these negotiations but I have to push back on this … notion that they aren’t being consulted, » national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News.

« They absolutely are and at the end of the day, though, this is going to be under President Trump’s leadership that we get this war to an end, » Mr Waltz said.

Marco Rubio, who was in Israel on Sunday before heading to Saudi Arabia, said the US is taking a careful approach as it reengages with Moscow after the Biden administration’s clampdown on contacts with the Kremlin following the February 2022 invasion.

President Donald Trump’s approach to ending Russia’s war against Ukraine has left European allies and Ukrainian officials worried they are being largely sidelined by the new US administration as Washington and Moscow plan direct negotiations.

With the three-year war grinding on, Mr Trump is sending secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian counterparts, according to a US official who was not authorised to publicly discuss the upcoming diplomatic efforts and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It is unclear to what extent Ukrainian or European officials will be represented in discussions expected to take place in Riyadh in the coming days. The official said the United States sees negotiations as early-stage and fluid, and who ultimately ends up at the table could change.

In an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Mr Trump said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky « will be involved » in the negotiations. Mr Trump offered no further explanation.

The outreach comes after comments by top Trump advisers this past week, including vice president JD Vance, raised new concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that the Republican administration is intent on quick resolution to the conflict with minimum input from Europe.

« Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending, » Mr Zelensky said in an address on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. « From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that. »

A Ukrainian drone attack on Krasnodar injured one person and damaged at least 12 houses, the governor of the southern Russia region said early this morning.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app, governor Veniamin Kondratyev called the attack « massive », but did not provide further detail.

Russia’s Shot Telegram news channel reported that Ukraine tried to attack the Ilsky oil refinery and that drone wreckage sparked a fire there.

The report could not be independently verified.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. It has said in the past its attacks inside Russia target infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts.

The refinery, which has a capacity of around 138,000 barrels per day, has been a target of numerous Ukrainian attacks since 2023, when Kyiv stepped up its drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the United Arab Emirates late on Sunday as momentum grows for potential peace talks ending Moscow’s war on the country.

US president Donald Trump last week suggested he would be meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia.

The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, long has been floated as a possible site for peace talks as well given the large population of Russian and Ukrainian expatriates who have flooded the country since the war began, and due to the Emirates’ work on prisoner exchanges in the past.

Mr Zelensky arrived in Abu Dhabi after attending the Munich Security Conference in Germany. Footage released by his office showed him and his wife, Olena Zelenska, being greeted by an Emirati official and honor guard at the airport late Sunday night.

Ms Zelenska has traveled to the UAE since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, but this trip is Mr Zelensky’s first to the UAE since the war began. »Our top priority is bringing even more of our people home from captivity, » Mr Zelensky’s office said in messages online.

« We will also focus on investments and economic partnership, as well as a large-scale humanitarian program. »

White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Sunday said he would travel to Saudi Arabia later in the day with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz for talks on how to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

« I am going tonight, » Witkoff said of the trip in a Fox News interview. « I’ll be traveling there with the national security advisor, and we’ll be having meetings at the direction of the president, and hopefully we’ll make some really good progress. »

The upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia will be among the first high-level in-person discussions between Russian and U.S. officials in years and are meant to precede a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the risk Russia will occupy Europe is “100 per cent” if the US leaves Nato, adding intelligence showed 150,000 of Putin’s soldiers amassing in neighbouring Belarus.

The Ukrainian president issued the stark warning during an interview with NBC News, where he stressed that he trusted President Donald Trump, but would not accept any ceasefire deal conducted without Ukraine at the negotiating table.

Mr Zelensky voiced his concern that Putin was waiting for the weakening of Nato, and that the withdrawal of US military support in Europe would place his country and former Soviet bloc countries in a “difficult position”.

He told Kristen Welker: “There are risks that this can be Poland and Lithuania because we believe – we believe that Putin will wage war against Nato.”

Sir Keir Starmer confirmed he is prepared to put a peacekeeping force into Ukraine if there is a deal to end the war with Russia, acknowledging this could put British troops “in harm’s way” if Vladimir Putin attacks again.

The Prime Minister is joining European leaders for emergency talks in Paris as they scramble for a strategy in response to US President Donald Trump’s push for a deal with Russian president Mr Putin and fears the US will reduce its defence commitments in the continent.

Sir Keir said the crisis was a “once in a generation moment” and an “existential” question for Europe.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister said the UK was “ready to play a leading role” in Ukraine’s defence and security, including the commitment of £3 billion a year until 2030.

But he said that along with military aid to Ukraine “it also means being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary”.

“I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way,” Sir Keir said.

Talks on Ukraine with the participation of the Russian delegation are expected to take place in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported late on Sunday, citing unnamed sources.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Ukraine will not be joining talks between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia this week, it has been reported.

Top US diplomats have flown out to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, marking the first high-level in-person discussions between Russian and US officials in years. The summit is meant to precede a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, Ukrainian president Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine had not been invited to the talks, and a government source told the BBC that Kyiv would not be attending.