European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to Washington, DC on Monday, seeking an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, after United States President Donald Trump dropped both his push for a ceasefire and the threat of punitive actions against Russia following his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Securing a ceasefire in Ukraine, more than three years after Russia’s invasion, had been one of Trump’s core demands before Friday’s Alaska summit, to which Ukraine and its European allies were not invited.Special US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that Putin agreed at the summit with Trump to allow the US and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defence mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3 1/2-year war.“We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he said on the CNN news programme State of the Union. Witkoff said it was the first time he had heard Putin agree to that.Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, speaking in Brussels on Sunday after meeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said the current front lines of the war should be the basis for peace talks.“We need real negotiations, which means we can start where the front line is now,” Zelenskyy said, adding that European leaders support this and reiterating his long-held position that it was necessary to establish a ceasefire i …
