Europe and Ukraine press the U.S. ahead of Trump-Putin talks in Alaska

European officials presented their ain Ukraine bid proposals to the United States connected Saturday arsenic President Donald Trump prepared for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin connected ending the war.

Trump plans to conscionable Putin successful Alaska connected August 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were adjacent to a woody that could resoluteness the three-and-a-half-year conflict.

Details of the imaginable woody person yet to beryllium announced, but Trump said it would impact "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both". It could necessitate Ukraine to surrender important parts of its territory, an result Zelenskyy and his European allies accidental would lone promote Russian aggression.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance met Ukrainian and European allies connected Saturday astatine Chevening House, a state mansion southeast of London, to sermon Trump's propulsion for peace.

A European authoritative confirmed a counterproposal was enactment guardant by European representatives astatine the gathering but declined to supply details.

The Wall Street Journal said European officials had presented a counterproposal that included demands that a ceasefire indispensable instrumentality spot earlier immoderate different steps are taken and that immoderate territory speech indispensable beryllium reciprocal, with steadfast information guarantees.

"You can't commencement a process by ceding territory successful the mediate of fighting," it quoted 1 European negotiator arsenic saying.

A U.S. authoritative said "hours-long" meetings astatine Chevening produced important advancement toward bringing an extremity to the warfare successful Ukraine. The White House did not instantly respond erstwhile asked if the Europeans had presented their counterproposals to the U.S.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke and pledged to find a "just and lasting peace" successful Ukraine and "unwavering support" for Zelenskyy, portion welcoming Trump's efforts to extremity the fighting, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

It was not wide what, if anything, had been agreed astatine Chevening, but Zelenskyy called the gathering constructive.

"All our arguments were heard," helium said successful his evening code to Ukrainians. "The way to bid for Ukraine should beryllium determined unneurotic and lone unneurotic with Ukraine, this is cardinal principle."

He had earlier rejected immoderate territorial concessions, saying "Ukrainians volition not springiness their onshore to the occupier."

The Trump medication is considering inviting Zelenskyy to articulation the U.S. and Russian presidents astatine their Alaska meeting, NBC News reported, citing an unnamed U.S. official. A Trump spokesperson did not instantly respond to a petition for comment, and Russian and Ukrainian officials could not instantly beryllium reached for comment.

Macron besides said Ukraine indispensable play a relation successful immoderate negotiations.

"Ukraine's aboriginal cannot beryllium decided without the Ukrainians, who person been warring for their state and information for implicit 3 years now," helium wrote connected X aft what helium said were calls with Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Starmer. "Europeans volition besides needfully beryllium portion of the solution, arsenic their ain information is astatine stake."

Zelenskyy has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine's allies since Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff's sojourn to Moscow connected Wednesday, which Trump described arsenic having achieved "great progress."

Ukraine and the European Union person pushed backmost connected proposals that they presumption arsenic ceding excessively overmuch to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine successful February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia's information from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West.

Kyiv and its Western allies accidental the penetration is an imperial-style onshore grab.

Moscow has antecedently claimed 4 Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – arsenic good arsenic the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed successful 2014.

Russian forces bash not afloat power each the territory successful the 4 regions and Russia has demanded that Ukraine propulsion retired its troops from the parts of each 4 of them that they inactive control.

Ukraine says its troops inactive person a tiny foothold successful Russia's Kursk region, a twelvemonth aft its troops crossed the borderline to effort to summation leverage successful immoderate negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk successful April.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a elder chap astatine the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the existent bid propulsion arsenic "the archetypal much oregon little realistic effort to halt the war."

"At the aforesaid time, I stay highly skeptical astir the implementation of the agreements, adjacent if a truce is reached for a while. And determination is virtually nary uncertainty that the caller commitments could beryllium devastating for Ukraine," she said.

Fierce warring is raging on the much than 1,000-km (620-mile) beforehand enactment on eastbound and confederate Ukraine, wherever Russian forces clasp astir a 5th of the country's territory.

Russian troops are dilatory advancing successful Ukraine's east, but their summertime violative has truthful acold failed to execute a large breakthrough, Ukrainian subject analysts say.

Ukrainians stay defiant.

"Not a azygous serviceman volition hold to cede territory, to propulsion retired troops from Ukrainian territories," Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters arsenic she gestured to hundreds of tiny Ukrainian flags successful the Kyiv cardinal quadrate commemorating fallen soldiers.