U.S. President, Donald Trump said Russia should make peace with Ukraine, and that he would try to help, after Group of Seven leaders met President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday, but there were few details of any concrete steps to raise the pressure on Moscow.
Trump, who arrived at the G7 summit in the French lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains brandishing a preliminary deal to end his war with Iran and with a renewed focus on the conflict in Ukraine, described the meeting with Zelenskiy as “very good”.
Zelenskiy and European leaders sought to impress on Trump that Ukraine’s fortunes have improved as it pushes for more support to strengthen its hand in eventual peace talks. Trump was due to have face-to-face talks with Zelenskiy later on Tuesday. Earlier, Ukraine’s presidency shared images of Zelenskiy in conversation with Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the summit’s sidelines.
“I’m gonna do whatever I can,” Trump told reporters, adding that too many young men were dying on the battlefield on both sides. “Look, Russia should make a deal.”
Two European diplomats said that, during the meeting, Zelenskiy showed Trump images of the aftermath of a Russian strike on Monday on Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra monastery. Trump expressed disapproval of the strike, one of the European diplomats said, while the other said that it had been “psychologically” a good move by Zelenskiy to show the images.
Zelenskiy told reporters in an interview that his key focus was to strengthen air defence for Ukraine, but also that there had been discussion about additional sanctions to bring Moscow to the negotiating table. European diplomats said the tone of the meeting had been constructive.
“We now seem to have joint analysis: that Russia is on the defensive now,” one European diplomat said.
But two of the diplomats said Trump had been noncommittal on imposing further U.S. sanctions on Moscow, as European leaders want. Trump told reporters Washington was now in a position to let Russian oil waivers lapse after an interim accord to end the Iran war soothed markets, but he did not address the question of broader punitive measures.
European leaders have wanted to convince Trump that previous U.S. positions on the possible terms of a deal were overly favourable towards Moscow, particularly now that Ukraine’s drone incursions into Russia have improved its fortunes.
“The tide is turning for Ukraine,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X. “Russia’s fatigue is openly showing. That’s the time to double down on our support.”
A French diplomat said G7 leaders had agreed that the battlefield dynamic was now in Ukraine’s favour, and committed to providing Kyiv with more air defence capabilities.
European leaders were also set to warn Trump that an interim deal with Iran risks entrenching Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. They also hoped to learn more details of the memorandum. President Emmanuel Macron said the priority was to ensure there was a “solid, serious agreement that is finalised”.