EU leaders say Ukraine should have freedom to decide its future

By Lili Bayer and Lidia Kelly

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Ukrainians must have the freedom to decide their own future, European Union member states said on Tuesday, seeking to weigh in ahead of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy plan to speak with Trump on Wednesday, before the summit in Alaska, amid fears that Washington, hitherto Ukraine's leading arms supplier, may dictate unfavourable peace terms to Kyiv.

"Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities," the leaders of all EU countries except Hungary said in a joint statement, adding: "We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine's and Europe's vital security interests."

FEARS THAT TRUMP MAY REWARD RUSSIA

Kyiv and its European allies fear that Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and seal business deals with Moscow, could in effect reward Russia for more than 11 years of efforts to seize Ukrainian territory, the last three in open warfare.

"A Ukraine capable of defending itself effectively is an integral part of any future security guarantees," the European statement said, adding that EU nations were ready to contribute further to security guarantees.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin's principal ally in Europe, mocked the statement from his EU counterparts.

"The fact that the EU was left on the sidelines is sad enough as it is. The only thing that could make things worse is if we started providing instructions from the bench," Orban said on X.

"The only sensible action for EU leaders is to initiate an EU-Russia summit, based on the example of the U.S.-Russia meeting."

Trump had been hardening his stance towards Moscow, agreeing to send more U.S. weapons to Ukraine and threatening hefty trade tariffs on buyers of Russian oil in an ultimatum that has now lapsed.

Even so, the prospect of Trump hosting Putin on U.S. soil for the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021 has revived fears that he might put narrow U.S. interests ahead of the security of European allies or broader geopolitics.

UKRAINE MAKES SMALL ADVANCES IN SUMY

Trump has said any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both" Russia and Ukraine, prompting consternation in Kyiv and European capitals as virtually all the territory in question is Ukrainian.

Kyiv's military said on Monday it had retaken two villages in the eastern region of Sumy, part of a small reversal in more than a year of slow, attritional Russian gains in the southeast.

"It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy," Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook, following a meeting on Tuesday with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and fellow commanders.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has mounted a new offensive this year in Sumy after Putin demanded a "buffer zone" there.

Russian forces have meanwhile been pushing westward for months along other sections of the 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline, capturing villages almost daily, mainly in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine's authoritative Deep State mapping project shows that Russian forces control about 200 sq km (77 sq miles) of Sumy, and a total of about 114,000 sq km (44,000 sq miles) in Ukraine, including Crimea, seized in 2014.

(Reporting by Lili Bayer and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; additional reporting by Krisztina Than in Budapest; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Kevin Liffey)