{"id":109809,"date":"2025-08-10T12:19:54","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=109809"},"modified":"2025-08-10T12:19:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:19:56","slug":"europe-ukraine-push-us-for-tougher-stance-ahead-of-trump-putin-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>KYIV\/LONDON(National Times)-  European leaders and Ukraine are urging the US to take a firmer line before President Donald Trump\u2019s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war, fearing it could tilt the balance in Moscow\u2019s favour. European officials presented their own Ukraine peace proposals to the US on Saturday.\u00a0 Trump announced on Friday that he would meet Putin in Alaska on August 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict. Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Trump said it would involve \u201csome swapping of territories to the betterment of both\u201d. It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory \u2013 an outcome Kyiv and its European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression. US Vice President JD Vance met Ukrainian and European allies on Saturday at Chevening House, a country mansion south-east of London, to discuss Trump\u2019s push for peace.A European official confirmed a counterproposal was put forward by European representatives at the meeting but declined to provide details. The\u00a0<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0said European officials had presented a counter-proposal that included demands that a ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken and that any territory exchange must be reciprocal, with firm security guarantees. \u201cYou can\u2019t start a process by ceding territory in the middle of fighting,\u201d it quoted one European negotiator as saying. A US official said \u201chours-long\u201d meetings at Chevening \u201cproduced significant progress toward President Trump\u2019s goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine, ahead of President Trump and President Putin\u2019s upcoming meeting in Alaska.\u201d The White House did not immediately respond when asked if the Europeans had presented their counterproposals to the US. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke and pledged to find a \u201cjust and lasting peace\u201d in Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said. \u201cThey discussed the latest developments in Ukraine, reiterating their unwavering support to President Zelenskiy and to securing a just and lasting peace for the Ukrainian people.\u201d \u201cThey welcomed President Trump\u2019s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine and end Russia\u2019s war of aggression, and discussed how to further work closely with President Trump and President Zelenskiy over the coming days.\u201d It was not clear what, if anything, had been agreed at Chevening, but Zelenskiy called the meeting constructive. \u201cAll our arguments were heard,\u201d he said in his evening address to Ukrainians. \u201cThe path to peace for Ukraine should be determined together and only together with Ukraine, this is key principle,\u201d he said. He had earlier rejected any territorial concessions, saying \u201cUkrainians will not give their land to the occupier.\u201d Macron also said Ukraine must play a role in any negotiations. \u201cUkraine\u2019s future cannot be decided without the Ukrainians, who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,\u201d he wrote on X after what he said were calls with Zelenskiy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Starmer. \u201cEuropeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018Clear steps needed\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Zelenskiy has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine\u2019s allies since Trump\u2019s envoy Steve Witkoff\u2019s visit to Moscow on Wednesday which Trump described as having achieved \u201cgreat progress\u201d. \u201cClear steps are needed, as well as maximum coordination between us and our partners,\u201d Zelenskiy said in a post on X earlier on Saturday. Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia\u2019s security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab. Moscow has previously claimed four Ukrainian regions \u2013 Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson \u2013 as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions and Russia has demanded that Ukraine pull out its troops from the parts of all four of them that they still control. Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia\u2019s Kursk region a year after its troops crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, described the current peace push as \u201cthe first more or less realistic attempt to stop the war\u201d. \u201cAt the same time, I remain extremely sceptical about the implementation of the agreements, even if a truce is reached for a while. And there is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine,\u201d she said. Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line along eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold around a fifth of the country\u2019s territory. Russian troops are slowly advancing in Ukraine\u2019s east, but their summer offensive has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, Ukrainian military analysts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ukrainians remain defiant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNot a single serviceman will agree to cede territory, to pull out troops from Ukrainian territories,\u201d Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KYIV\/LONDON(National Times)- European leaders and Ukraine are urging the US to take a firmer line before President Donald Trump\u2019s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war, fearing it could tilt the balance in Moscow\u2019s favour. European officials presented their own Ukraine peace proposals to the US on Saturday.\u00a0 Trump announced on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"KYIV\/LONDON(National Times)- European leaders and Ukraine are urging the US to take a firmer line before President Donald Trump\u2019s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war, fearing it could tilt the balance in Moscow\u2019s favour. European officials presented their own Ukraine peace proposals to the US on Saturday.\u00a0 Trump announced on [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-10T07:19:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-10T07:19:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-670x370-41.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"670\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/\",\"name\":\"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks - Nation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-670x370-41.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-10T07:19:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-10T07:19:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-670x370-41.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image-670x370-41.png\",\"width\":670,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\",\"name\":\"Nation\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\",\"name\":\"humza Jahangir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"humza Jahangir\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/author\/humza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks - Nation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/109809\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Europe, Ukraine push US for tougher stance ahead of Trump\u2013Putin talks - Nation","og_description":"KYIV\/LONDON(National Times)- European leaders and Ukraine are urging the US to take a firmer line before President Donald Trump\u2019s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war, fearing it could tilt the balance in Moscow\u2019s favour. 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