European leaders on Saturday vowed to keep tightening sanctions on Russia even after U.S. president Donald Trump’s talks with Vladimir Putin raised hopes of a breakthrough in Alaska.
A statement signed by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni pledged to “continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia’s war economy until there is a just and lasting peace.”
The leaders also declared that Moscow “cannot have a veto” over Ukraine’s future membership in either the EU or NATO, while signalling they were “ready to work… towards a trilateral summit with European support” that would include Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Macron used X to call for “unbreakable” security guarantees in any peace deal and warned against Russia’s “well-documented tendency to not keep its own commitments.”
Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer took a different tone, praising Trump’s push for diplomacy as bringing “us closer than ever before to ending Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.” Meloni also struck an optimistic note, posting: “Finally, there is a glimmer of hope for peace talks in Ukraine. Italy is doing its part alongside its Western allies.”
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán was even more direct, celebrating the outcome of the summit by declaring: “Today the world is a safer place than it was yesterday. May every weekend be at least this good!”
