Star Metro - Europeans plan Ukraine talks with Trump before he meets Putin

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has invited the French, British and other European leaders and the EU and NATO chiefs to the virtual talks, his spokesman said, amid fears across Europe that any deal made without Ukraine could force unacceptable compromises.

Merz's office said Monday the video conference in various rounds of talks would discuss "further options to exert pressure on Russia" and "preparation of possible peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security".

French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer were also involved in planning Wednesday's meeting of the "coalition of the willing".

Trump and Putin will meet in the US state of Alaska on Friday to try to resolve the three-year war but the European Union has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any deal to end the conflict.

Trump said Monday he expected the meeting with Putin to be "constructive" and expressed unhappiness with Zelensky for ruling out territorial concessions to Russia.

"I'm going to speak to Vladimir Putin and I'm going to be telling him 'you've got to end this war,'" Trump said at a White House press conference.

As EU foreign ministers began an emergency meeting on Ukraine on Monday, Merz announced the initiative to keep Europe at the table.

Merz's office said he would on Wednesday talk to 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 US president and his deputy".

According to Germany's Bild daily, a first conference call will include the European leaders, Zelensky, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

This would be followed by a joint call with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, the newspaper said.

The idea of a US-Russia meeting without Zelensky has raised concerns that a deal could require Ukraine to cede swathes of territory, which the EU has rejected.

Over the weekend, several European leaders pushed Trump to exert more pressure on Russia in a joint statement and warned that "the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine".

- 'Testing Putin' -

Ahead of Monday's EU talks, Zelensky warned against capitulating to Putin's demands.

"Russia refuses to stop the killings, and therefore must not receive any rewards or benefits. And this is not just a moral position -- it is a rational one," Zelensky wrote in a statement published on social media.

"Concessions do not persuade a killer," he added.

Asked on CNN on Sunday if Zelensky could be present at the Alaska summit, US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker responded that "yes, I certainly think it's possible."

"Certainly, there can't be a deal that everybody that's involved in it doesn't agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it's a high priority to get this war to end."

The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, also said any US-Russia deal to end the war had to include Ukraine and the bloc.

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

As a prerequisite to a peace settlement, the Kremlin has demanded Kyiv pull its forces out of several regions claimed by Moscow, commit to being a neutral state, shun US and EU military support and be excluded from joining NATO.

Kyiv said it would never recognise 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.

Both sides have meanwhile stepped up aerial assaults, with Ukraine claiming to have hit a facility that produces missile components in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region. Local authorities said one person was killed in the attack and two were wounded.

Russia's defence ministry said on Monday its forces had captured the village of Fedorivka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. The village is northeast of the embattled towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnograd towards which Russia has been advancing.

burs-jsk/fz/gv

F.T. Michaud--SMC