U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Sunday that top administration officials will meet with European officials this week about how to end the war in Ukraine, nearly three years after Russia launched an all-out invasion.
Less than a day earlier, the New York Post reported that Mr. Trump had a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss steps toward a negotiated solution. There was no immediate confirmation from the White House or the Kremlin. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz declined to comment in a television interview.
Mr. Waltz said the Russian economy is not doing well and that Mr. Trump “is prepared to tax, to tariff, to sanction” Moscow to get Mr. Putin to the negotiating table.
But Mr. Waltz also underscored the Trump administration is looking to use this week’s engagements to begin talks on clawing back some of the United States’ assistance to Ukraine. He said European allies will also need to take a greater role in supporting Ukraine going forward.
“We need to recoup those costs and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their natural resources and their oil and gas and also buying ours,” Mr. Waltz said in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Those conversations are going to happen this week. And I think an underlying principle here is that the Europeans have to own this conflict going forward. President Trump is going to end it. And then in terms of security guarantees, that is squarely going to be with the Europeans.”
Vice-President JD Vance will be in Paris on Monday for an artificial-intelligence summit that’s gathering government officials and will head later in the week to the Munich Security Conference, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will lead the battle-weary country’s delegation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Mr. Trump’s special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, will also be in Munich.
On Wednesday, Mr. Hegseth will join the main international forum for drumming up weapons and ammunition for Ukraine. He’s set to participate in a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels the following day.
The U.K. is convening the 26th meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 partner nations, on Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels. It was not immediately clear whether the U.K. convened the meeting on its own initiative or whether Washington requested it.
Kyiv under pressure as Russian troops advance and Trump floats talks with Putin
Mr. Putin is closer than ever to achieving his objectives in battle-weary Ukraine, with little incentive to come to the negotiating table, no matter how much Mr. Trump might cajole or threaten him, according to Russian and Western experts interviewed by the Associated Press.
Mr. Putin has previously said Mr. Trump was “clever and pragmatic,” and even parroted his false claims of having won the 2020 election. Mr. Trump’s opening gambit was to call Mr. Putin “smart” and to threaten Russia with tariffs and oil-price cuts, which the Kremlin brushed off.
Mr. Trump boasted during the presidential election campaign that he could end the war in 24 hours, which later became six months. He’s indicated the U.S. is talking to Russia about Ukraine without Kyiv’s input, saying his administration already had “very serious” discussions.
That would run counter to the Biden administration’s position that echoed Mr. Zelensky’s call of “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” The Ukrainian leader has suggested any peace deal reached without Kyiv’s input would send the dangerous signal that adventurism pays to authoritarian leaders in China, North Korea and Iran.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has hinted he and Mr. Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the war, in which Russia is suffering heavy casualties daily while its economy endures stiff Western sanctions, inflation and a serious labour shortage. But the economy has not collapsed, and because Mr. Putin has unleashed the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times, he faces no domestic pressure to end the war.
Ukraine hopes to make its case in Munich
Andriy Yermak, a top Zelensky adviser who will attend the Munich security conference, has told AP the Ukrainian delegation will use its platform to present Kyiv’s position on ending the war. He said Kyiv hopes to discuss what security guarantees could be put in place to prevent repeated aggression by Russia.
The Munich summit comes at a pivotal moment for Ukraine, which is striving to establish a relationship with the new U.S. administration, a key partner during its years-long war against Russia.