More than a dozen leaders including Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, the U.K.’s Keir Starmer, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen and Canada’s Mark Carney met for an urgent discussion at the G20 summit in Johannesburg to coordinate their response with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The draft is a basis which will require additional work,” the leaders said in a joint statement after discussing Trump’s plan. “We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force. We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.”
The leaders reiterated the “strength” of their continued support for Ukraine and insisted that any provisions in a peace deal that affected the EU or NATO would require proper “consent” from the members of these multinational blocs.
The main aim of Ukraine’s friends is to strengthen Zelenskyy’s position and ensure he has their public backing for whatever comes next. While none of Ukraine’s allies has been involved in drafting Trump’s plan or has said they think it is fair, they took care not to reject the 28-point blueprint outright, for fear of antagonizing Trump.
Crisis talks
Instead, intense work is going on behind the scenes to devise alternatives that would better protect Ukrainian and European interests, the officials said. However, it is clear that none of Ukraine’s friends and allies believe the raw Trump plan is acceptable and some do not even want to give it any credibility at all.
One EU diplomat said engaging with the U.S. proposals would “lend legitimacy to something that has been drawn up without Ukrainian or European involvement, while its impact would directly affect us. As such it’s a non-starter.”