Alaska Summit Exposes EU Divisions as Trump Presses Zelensky on Russian Offer for Donbass
The European Union failed to issue a joint statement on the high-stakes Alaska summit; instead, a limited declaration emerged from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, joined by France’s Emmanuel Macron; Italy’s Giorgia Meloni; Germany’s Friedrich Merz; the UK’s Keir Starmer; Finland’s Alexander Stubb; Poland’s Donald Tusk; and EU Council President Antonio Costa.
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Crucially, it did not endorse US President Donald Trump’s main thesis: that negotiations should move directly toward a long-term settlement of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, bypassing demands for a preliminary ceasefire.
Diplomatic sources confirmed that despite an emergency meeting of all 27 EU ambassadors convened early Saturday, no consensus text could be reached. Officials said divisions remain over how to balance military support for Kyiv with growing pressure for negotiations.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was briefed by Trump in a one-and-a-half-hour phone call following the Alaska talks. According to Reuters, Zelensky dismissed outright a Russian offer relayed by Trump that called for Ukraine to fully withdraw its forces from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in exchange for freezing the front lines elsewhere.
The New York Times reported that Trump also floated this proposal in a separate call with European leaders, suggesting that Ukraine concede the entirety of Donbass, including areas still contested, in return for a ceasefire along current battle lines and Western-backed security guarantees.
Zelensky reportedly told Trump that ceding Donbass in full was "not possible." His response underscores a widening gap between Washington’s emerging pragmatism and Kyiv’s insistence on territorial integrity, as enshrined in international law.
The Alaska summit itself -- held August 15 at Elmendorf-Richardson military base -- lasted three hours. Putin and Trump met one-on-one inside the US president’s limousine before a smaller group session that included Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, alongside US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Putin called the meeting "timely and useful," highlighting discussions on a "fair resolution" of the Ukraine conflict. Trump described the encounter as "very productive," but cautioned that "we are not there yet." He later phoned von der Leyen, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and European leaders to press for support of his emerging peace framework.
The US president has now dropped his earlier condition of an immediate ceasefire, insisting that Ukraine and Russia should instead move "straight to a final peace deal." He also confirmed that he will host Zelensky at the White House on August 18.
Should that meeting produce a breakthrough, Trump signaled that a second summit with Putin could be scheduled.
The divided European response underscores the fragile diplomatic landscape. While Washington signals a readiness to move toward a negotiated settlement, Brussels remains locked in its familiar stance of military aid and rhetorical calls for "just peace." Kyiv, for its part, continues to reject any arrangement that concedes more territory to Russia.