Looking forward to US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, the EU has made clear its view that there can be no just peace without full participation of Ukraine.
In a statement, EU leaders, while welcoming the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, insisted that peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine, and that the people of Ukraine need to have the freedom to decide their future.
Prominent in their statement was a recognition of the wider implications of Russia’s war for European and international security. “We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests,” they said.
The European Union underlined its intention to continue to provide “political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine as Ukraine is exercising its inherent right of self-defence”. It will also continue to uphold and impose sanctions against the Russian Federation.
The EU also commits to making further contributions to “security guarantees based on their respective competences and capabilities, in line with international law, and in full respect of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and taking into account the security and defence interests of all Member States.”
Leaders of the European Parliament also welcomed the meeting but stressed that no peace in Ukraine can be negotiated without “full participation of Ukraine’s democratically elected leadership and the backing of its people”.
They added that a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine needed to be “firmly grounded in international law, the principles of the UN Charter and ensures the prosecution of those responsible for war crimes”.
The key point is their emphasis that any arrangement on terms dictated by Russia that reward its war of aggression against Ukraine “would gravely endanger the security of the European continent”.
