European leaders win Trump’s support to pressure Putin on unconditional ceasefire

KYIV — European leaders on Saturday upped the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine without any conditions attached, warning that Western allies would impose further sanctions on Moscow and ramp up military support for Kyiv if Moscow does not comply.

Crucially, U.S. President Donald Trump backs the European demands and is also willing to contribute to the implementation and surveillance of a potential ceasefire — at least that's what the European side says.

Putin must issue "no more ifs and buts, no more conditions and delays" but accept the ceasefire and work on a lasting peace deal, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters following the meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the leaders of France, Poland and Ukraine.

Putin later invited Ukraine to take part in "direct talks" on May 15 in Istanbul, without directly addressing the call for a 30-day ceasefire. Putin said Russia was seeking "serious negotiations" aimed at "moving towards a lasting, strong peace," the BBC reported.

The leaders from the four Kyiv allies had traveled to the Ukrainian capital together by train for a visit of more than nine hours with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The visit came shortly after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected calls for an extended ceasefire as long as the West doesn't stop its military support for Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron issued a direct rebuke to Russia's demand, telling reporters that "anything that disturbs the process by imposing conditions is, in a way, a delaying tactic to avoid peace."

Peskov later said Moscow would "have to think this through," while warning that "trying to pressure us is quite useless."

During the three-hour discussion between the leaders in Zelenskyy's Mariinsky Palace, Macron had taken the initiative to call Trump on his mobile phone and brief him together with the other leaders on the discussions.

Trump picked up the call, even though it was still before 7 a.m. in Washington, and agreed to support the European demands, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted an image of the five leaders on the phone with Trump, saying it was "a fruitful call."

In a social media post later, Trump said it was a "potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine," without mentioning the phone call. "I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens," Trump said, referring to a potential truce deal.

The proposed ceasefire will have "oversight provided mainly by the United States of America, and to which all Europeans will contribute," Macron later told reporters.

The French president added that this would "enable the immediate launch" of negotiations for a "robust and lasting peace on the question of territories, the question of sensitive energy infrastructures, and of course the question of security guarantees."

Threat of further sanctions

Germany's Merz told a press conference in Kyiv that "we are thankful that the American president fully supports our initiative." He later added in separate comments to German reporters that "there is a commitment by the American government to monitor a ceasefire."

Two European officials present in Kyiv lauded the outcome of the meeting as a big success, especially since the leaders managed to involve Trump and get his backing, even though one of the officials cautioned that the U.S. president has a tendency to shift his opinion quickly.

A lot now depends on how Putin reacts to the Western demands, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to talk about nonpublic discussions. On Saturday, intelligence officials in Kyiv voiced concerns that Russia might launch new airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital in the coming days, which would be a grim response that would mock the Western peace efforts.

A German government official said Merz and his fellow leaders had instructed their foreign policy advisers to immediately start preparations for a long-lasting peace deal should Russia accept the calls for an unconditional ceasefire.

Merz said the leaders of several other countries — from Canada to Turkey to New Zealand — had joined the meeting in Kyiv via videoconference and were supporting the efforts to put pressure on Putin.

"A large Coalition of the Willing around the world is determined to enforce" fresh sanctions against Russia if Moscow refuses to agree to the ceasefire, the German chancellor said.

Zelenskyy said that such sanctions would target Russia's energy sector and banking system.

No more talk of Taurus — at least publicly

At the press conference, Merz was also asked whether he would provide Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine — a hot-button issue for previous Chancellor Olaf Scholz who had continuously ruled out supplying the long-range weapons, which led to fierce political debate in Germany.

Merz sought to shut down the debate by arguing that he would not comment on such questions: "Which measures we are taking together to end this war [are] not primarily the subject of public debate," he said.

Indeed, the Merz government said ahead of Saturday's meeting that it would no longer communicate which type of military support Germany provides to Kyiv, meaning that Berlin will stop publishing detailed lists of weapons and ammunition sent to Ukraine, a German official said.

Merz' team calls this approach "strategic ambiguity," taking a leaf from Macron who introduced this concept last year. The idea: Putin should not know which weapons are provided (and in what quantities), and there should be no controversial political debate at home that might undermine support.

Zelenskyy went along with the new German line of communication and responded to a question about Taurus missiles by saying that he "wouldn’t want to speak publicly" about specific weapons or their quantities.

Another concrete outcome of Saturday's meeting is that Western allies want to ramp up financial and logistical support for Kyiv that will allow the Ukrainian side to have more weapons on the ground, such as tanks, drones and ammunition, but also long-range missiles.

One official said that it was very important that Merz participated in the Kyiv meeting. The reason: As the most powerful European country financially, a large part of the funding for Ukrainian weapons production will fall to Germany.