LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet European allies in London on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump accused him of not reading Washington’s proposal to end the war with Russia, underscoring widening tensions around the stalled peace effort.
The London talks follow days of negotiations in Miami between Ukrainian and U.S. officials that ended Saturday without a breakthrough, though Zelensky said Kyiv would continue discussions. He is due to be received by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron to coordinate on the next phase of negotiations. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is meanwhile expected in Washington for talks with her U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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Zelensky said he joined a “very substantive and constructive” call with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during the Miami round. “Ukraine is committed to continuing to work honestly with the American side to bring about real peace,” he said on Telegram, adding that the sides agreed “on the next steps and the format of the talks with America.”
Trump, however, voiced irritation at the pace of Kyiv’s response. “I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago,” he told reporters. Witkoff and Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last week, and Moscow has already rejected parts of the U.S. plan.
Macron criticized what he called Russia’s “escalatory path,” signaling continued European backing for Ukraine’s defense. “We will continue these efforts with the Americans to provide Ukraine with security guarantees, without which no robust and lasting peace will be possible,” he wrote on X. “We must continue to exert pressure on Russia to compel it to choose peace.”
The initial U.S. proposal aimed to end the nearly four-year war by having Ukraine surrender territory that Russia has been unable to take militarily, in exchange for security assurances short of NATO membership. Details of those guarantees remain unclear beyond an early concept under which fighter jets to defend Kyiv could be based in Poland.
Trump has alternated between praise for Putin and criticism of Kyiv since returning to office in January, chastising Zelensky for insufficient gratitude for U.S. support while also pressing for a negotiated end to the conflict. His effort to coax Putin at a summit in Alaska yielded no results, and he recently imposed sanctions on Russian oil firms as the war and its global fallout grind on.
In a parallel push to shore up Ukraine’s finances, Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin joined six other European leaders in backing the use of frozen Russian assets to underwrite a multibillion-euro loan for Kyiv. A proposal to convert as much as €210 billion in immobilized Russian holdings into a long-term loan to meet Ukraine’s budgetary and military needs is under review ahead of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Dec. 18.
Belgium remains opposed over concerns about retaliation and legal claims from Moscow. The bulk of Europe’s frozen assets are held by the Brussels-based securities depository Euroclear. In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, the seven leaders said “time is of the essence” and argued that using Russian assets is “the most financially feasible and politically realistic solution,” aligning with the principle that Ukraine is entitled to compensation for damages caused by Russia’s aggression.
They added that unbroken EU support is both a moral imperative and essential to European security, urging agreement in December on a reparations loan funded by cash balances from the immobilized assets. A decision this month, they said, would put Kyiv “in a stronger position to defend itself and a better position to negotiate a just and lasting peace.”
Additional reporting by Tony Connelly.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
