German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is hosting an online video conference today with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as well as the French, British and some other European leaders and the heads of the EU and NATO. The participants are then expected to talk to U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a second round of the conference call.
The Trump-Putin meeting on Friday—their first since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war—is so far planned to go ahead without Zelensky. This has fuelled fears Kyiv could be forced into painful concessions, including over land.
EU leaders stressed on Tuesday “the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny,” adding that “international borders must not be changed by force.”
Merz’s office said the conference call would discuss “further options to exert pressure on Russia” and “preparation of possible peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security.”
The talks would include leaders from “Finland, France, the UK, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, the heads of the European Commission and Council, the secretary general of NATO, as well as the U.S. president and his deputy,” Berlin said on Monday. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Merz are then also set to hold a round of talks of the so-called Coalition of the Willing of Ukraine’s military backers.
