US ‘working to schedule’ Trump-Putin-Zelensky meeting

KIEV

The United States is working to "schedule" a meeting between Donald Trump and his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Vice President JD Vance has said, as Ukraine's European allies push for Kiev's presence at the U.S.-Russia summit in Alaska this week.

"One of the most important logjams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with [Volodymyr] Zelensky, the head of Ukraine, and the president has now got that to change," Vance said during an interview on Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures."

"We're at a point now where we're trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict," Vance said when asked about his expectations for the Alaska summit on Aug. 15.

The vice president said the United States was going to "try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and Russians can live with."

Vance added: "It's not going to make anybody super happy, both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Aug. 11 has invited U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the NATO secretary general and several European leaders to a virtual meeting Wednesday ahead of the Trump-Putin summit later this week.

The German chancellery said in a statement that the talks would focus on “the current situation in Ukraine with a view to the planned meeting between U.S. President Trump and Russian President Putin.”

It said the talks will focus on “further options for action to put pressure on Russia” as well as “preparations for possible peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security.”

Europeans and Ukrainians so far are not invited to the summit Friday in Alaska.

The idea of a U.S.-Russia meeting without has raised concerns that a deal would require Kiev to cede swathes of territory, which the EU has rejected.

EU foreign ministers were to hold emergency talks late yesterday to discuss their next steps before talks between Putin and Trump.

European leaders pushed hard over the weekend for Ukraine to be a part of the talks.

"The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Finland, and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement, urging Trump to put more pressure on Russia.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Aug. 10 he hoped and assumed that Zelensky would attend the leaders' summit.

Leaders of the Nordic and Baltic countries, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden, also said no decisions should be taken without Kiev's involvement.

Talks on ending the war could only take place during a ceasefire, they added in a joint statement.

The EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said any deal between the United States and Russia to end the war had to include Ukraine and the bloc.

"The U.S. has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the U.S. and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine's and the whole of Europe's security," she added.

As a prerequisite to any peace settlement, Moscow has demanded Kiev pull its forces out of the regions and commit to being a neutral state, shun U.S. and EU military support and be excluded from joining NATO.

Kiev said it would never recognize Russian control over its sovereign territory, though it acknowledged that getting land captured by Russia back would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.