By Lili Bayer (OTC:BAYRY) and Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged European countries on Thursday to provide guarantees to protect Ukraine after the war with Russia ends but said these would not be enough without support from the United States under Donald Trump.
While the fighting triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion goes on with no end in sight, Western and Ukrainian officials have begun discussing post-war scenarios, prompted in part by President-elect Trump’s pledge to bring the conflict to a swift conclusion.
Addressing a summit of European Union leaders, Zelenskiy welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to deploy troops to Ukraine following an eventual ceasefire.
He told the leaders it was “crucial for Europe to make a significant contribution to security guarantees”.
“We support France’s initiative for a military contingent in Ukraine as part of these guarantees and call on other partners to join this effort, it will help bring the war to an end,” he told the closed-door meeting, according to a text posted on his website.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would ultimately need more protection through membership of the NATO military alliance. NATO has said Ukraine will join its ranks one day but it has not set a date or issued an invitation.
In the meantime, Zelenskiy said, Ukraine could have separate guarantees from European nations and the United States.
“It is impossible to discuss this only with European leaders, because for us, the real guarantees in any case – today or in the future – are NATO,” he told reporters.
“On the way to NATO, we want security guarantees while we are not in NATO. And we can discuss such guarantees separately with both the U.S. and Europe,” he said.
Whether Trump would be prepared to offer such guarantees is an open question.
Trump has repeatedly called for a swift end to the nearly three-year-old war. On Monday he said Zelenskiy should be ready to reach a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though he did not say whether this meant Kyiv ceding territory to Moscow as part of a negotiated settlement.
Russian forces occupy nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory and are making steady advances in the east of the country.
MESSAGE TO TRUMP
EU leaders aimed to use Thursday’s summit to send a clear signal to Trump about their continued support for Ukraine and stress that any peace deal must involve Ukraine and respect its territorial integrity.
“The European Council …underlines the principle that no initiative regarding Ukraine be taken without Ukraine,” said an official declaration issued by the summit.
Zelenskiy said any end to fighting would have to be durable.
“We cannot live with a frozen conflict in our territory,” he told reporters.
The EU leaders were also due to discuss wider EU-U.S. relations, amid concerns of a possible transatlantic trade war.
Trump has said the EU will “pay a big price” with tariffs for not buying enough U.S. exports. He has already pledged hefty tariffs on three of the United States’ largest trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China.
EU diplomats have said the key for the bloc is unity and avoidance of Washington conducting discussions or deals with single EU members – a copy of its unified strategy for dealing with Britain during Brexit negotiations.
The EU will seek to point out it is the United States’ second-biggest trading partner and a close ally with shared values. However, mindful that Trump is preoccupied by the U.S. goods trade deficit, EU officials have floated the idea of offering to buy more U.S. LNG or arms.
“If the U.S. is looking at China, then we should stick together – Europe and the United States. If we have a trade war between the U.S. and the EU, then who is laughing out loud? It is China,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
