What the key players want

This may prove to be the decisive week of the Ukrainian war, with two sets of hastily arranged talks in Paris and Riyadh.

European leaders met in France as they fought to respond to Donald Trump’s plane negotiated with Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet in the Saudi capital on Tuesday.

Ukraine did not participate in any series of conversations.

Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls more than one-fifth of its territory, mainly in the south and east.

BBC reporters analyzed the key forces that will emerge in two days of intense diplomacy.

U.K.

Harry Farley, political correspondent in London

Sir Keir Starmer wants to be a bridge between European leaders and Trump’s White House to condemn their defensive spending.

Starmer’s proposal to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine was part of the role he wanted to play.

The government has said in the past that the terms of any peace agreement depend on Ukraine. This has changed the signal that a new U.S. administration suggests that going back to the 2014 border is “unrealistic.”

Instead, Sir Kyle will hope that more European countries in Paris will work with him to provide their troops to ensure a deal and prevent another Russian invasion.

But when the Prime Minister was in Paris, in Westminster, the debate continued on how much the country spent on defense.

Labor has pledged to “develop a way” to increase defense spending from 2.3% now to 2.5%. This will be a significant rise, defense sources said.

But no date will happen – many people think it is urgent.

Germany

German correspondent Damien McGuinness

This is a sign of how Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine rattles the German leader Just a few days before the national election Prime Minister Olaf Scholz is also in Paris.

All mainstream parties condemn the United States’ proposal to have no Ukraine or the EU’s peace agreement. The far-right and populist left politicians welcome talks with Putin and want to stop arming Kiev. But they won’t come on stage.

So Berlin’s support for Ukraine will remain strong regardless of what the next German government looks like. That’s because Berlin’s political elites realized that a bad deal – a deal that undermined Ukraine’s sovereignty – was disastrous for Germany.

But considering Germany’s 20th century, the voters here are wary of militarization.

Over the past three years, the country has successfully escaped Russia’s energy and greatly increased its defense spending. But this hit the German economy, and subsequent budgetary behavior triggered a collapse in the German government.

As a result, politicians are trying to avoid public discussions about difficult issues, such as NATO’s higher spending targets or German peacekeeping forces in Ukraine – at least after the election.

Poland

Sarah Rainsford, Eastern European Reporter, Warsaw

Since the start of the full Russian invasion, Poland has been a major supporter of Ukraine, a key logistical hub for military and humanitarian aid entering the country.

It was also a loud voice, thinking that Russia could not be won over the war it launched – because the security of the entire Europe was threatened. It is therefore shocking that even in the case where Poland is very clearly seeing Russia as an invader and danger, the United States seems to recognize Moscow’s main demands.

Russia is why Poland will now spend a lot of people on GDP and agrees that the rest of Europe should do the same.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on the way to talks in Paris: “If we, Europeans, are not spending a lot of time on defense now, if we do not prevent a wider war, we will be forced to spend 10 times more. .”

Regarding whether Polish forces are sent to Ukraine – to help implement any final ceasefire – government officials have been cautious and have been excluded at present.

Nordic and Baltic countries

Nick Beake, European journalist in Copenhagen

Denmark will be the only Nordic country at Monday’s meeting. But European diplomats say it will also represent the interests of its Baltic neighbours – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all bordering Russia and are particularly vulnerable to future Putin attacks.

The shock wave generated by the second Trump term has echoed in Denmark.

Trump’s new aspiration to take over Greenland – autonomous Denmark dependent territory – pushes Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s European allies tour last month to support support.

In Paris on Monday, Frederiksen found himself again in a hurry meeting in response to Trump’s reshaping of the transatlantic security landscape.

Frederiksen has not followed Starmer’s footsteps of ensuring peacekeeping boots on Ukrainian grounds.

Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen was quoted as saying that he did not rule it out, but it was too early.

France

By Andrew Harding, Paris correspondent

French President Emmanuel Macron convened an informal meeting on Monday – his officials insisted that it was not a “summit” to help Europe coordinate responses to Washington’s increasingly ruthless gesture to the continent, and everything in the fast-paced negotiations between the White House and the Kremlin.

“As we said, the answer is yes.

“Europe has not seen a wind of unity since Europe,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, the highest-ranking French diplomat.

French sentiment – The sentiment of a country that always maintains American geopolitical action – now especially for avant-garde, newspaper headlines warn the new “Trump-Pudin axis” that will In the Ukrainian war, it was limited to Europe.

“We should be in a European-wide state of emergency,” former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin warned at a recent press conference.

Russia

Written by BBC Russia in Liza Fokht in Paris

Since the summer, Putin said that the main conditions for him to start negotiations to end the war were to recognize Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, lift sanctions on Russia and reject Ukraine’s request to join NATO.

Most European countries reject these requirements. The United States has been very cautious in discussing concessions Russia may have to make, although both the White House and the Pentagon say they expect a “both sides” to compromise.

Moscow’s top priority is obviously the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he would “firstly listen to” the U.S. proposal to end the Ukrainian conflict.

As for Europe, Moscow invited it to the negotiations meaninglessly.

Putin has been seeking dialogue with the United States for years, and there is no doubt that he accuses both of starting the war in Ukraine and considers the only power that is the same as Russia.

Moscow may notice Starmer’s statement about preparing to send peacekeepers to Ukraine – the first time in a week, the discussion was about potential Russians, not Ukraine’s concessions.

However, whether Russia is ready for any compromise remains an open question.

USA

By Bernd Debusmann Jr of Palm Beach

Special envoys for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff from the Middle East will be the public face of the American team held in Riyadh — but perhaps the main voice of the desktop is over 7,400 miles (11,900 kilometers) ), in Palm Beach, Florida.

Despite Trump’s open war in recent days, it is clear that negotiations with Russia about Ukraine’s fate have been the focus behind him.

On Sunday, Trump told reporters he was aligned with the latest developments and that negotiations were “continuing”.

His short-term goal is to stop fighting in Ukraine. In the long run, he seems to want to reduce U.S. participation, which has sent billions of dollars in weapons to Kiev.

Trump has also pushed for access to rare minerals in Ukraine in exchange for aid and even compensation for the support the United States has already provided.

But he hasn’t said about the appearance of Ukraine after the war, which has caused a wake-up call in Europe.

He also said in particular that he expected Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to be part of the “dialogue” but not the talk in Riyadh. Rubio said negotiations in Saudi Arabia were just the beginning of a longer process, namely “apparently” including Europe and Ukraine.

These remarks likely provided comfort to American allies who have been listening to Trump’s speeches over the past few days.

Responding to a BBC question on Wednesday, Trump said he believes he tends to agree with the assessment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the return of the border to Ukraine before 2014 is unrealistic, although he Hopefully Ukraine may get a return on “some land”. .

So far, it seems that the solution is not the solution for Zelensky and other Ukrainian leadership.

Mariana Matveichuk, Kiev BBC Ukraine

The Ukrainian people believe that their future is as uncertain as in February 2022.

Ukrainians want peace – to avoid waking up the sirens and not losing their loved ones in the battlefield and frontline cities.

Russia accounts for almost 25% of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine’s defense has paid tens of thousands of citizens’ lives.

The country has insisted in the past that any peace agreement includes the entire evacuation of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. This includes not only the areas occupied by Russia in a full-scale offensive, but also the Black Sea Peninsula in Crimea, which Russia annexed after 2014, and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that Russia supported separatists after 2014.

Ukrainians feared that like the peace agreements in 2014 or 2015 – the fierce fighting was stopped, but the firefighting at the border continued to bring losses.

There is no security guarantee, which also means there will be a new wave of war in about a decade.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the U.S.-Russia meeting: “Ukraine believes that without any negotiations from Ukraine there will be no result and we cannot admit…without our agreement.”

No matter what form of peace negotiation is adopted, Ukrainians want to represent themselves in their future.

Many believe that the previous peace arrangements with Russia have only paved the way for its full invasion. Therefore, Ukraine’s fear is that any deal agrees to its mind and could lead to a third round of war.