European Leaders Meet to Discuss Ukraine War as Trump Officials Prepare For Russia Peace Talks

The leaders of many of Europe’s biggest countries came to Paris on Monday in an effort to forge a strategy for their own security, as President Trump’s envoys prepared for talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine without them.

The meeting in Paris was pulled together hastily after the first visit to Europe last week by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that left European leaders alarmed by both the tone and message of the new Trump administration and what it might hold for the continent.

Europeans were shocked by the hostility of Mr. Vance’s scathing speech in Munich criticizing Europe’s exclusion of far-right groups from power, and the sudden American plans to begin peace talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia, starting on Tuesday, without the presence of Ukrainian or European leaders.

The meetings with the new U.S. officials sowed real fear that the United States wants to pull thousands of troops out of Europe on a timetable that would leave Europe vulnerable to an aggressive Russia, and that Mr. Trump will cut a deal with Mr. Putin over the heads of Ukrainians and Europeans.

“Europe’s security is at a turning point,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on X after arriving in Paris on Monday. “Yes, it is about Ukraine — but it is also about us. We need an urgency mind-set. We need a surge in defense. And we need both of them now.”

The meeting, called by President Emmanuel Macron of France at the Élysée Palace, is an initial effort to discuss a more coordinated and collective response to the Trump administration. The Élysée Palace said that Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump held a 20-minute phone call before the meeting began.

On the agenda in Paris: what Europeans are willing to commit to secure any peace deal over the war in Ukraine in the short term, and in the long term, how to secure the continent as it faces an expansionist Russia and the predicted withdrawal of the assurance of American support.

Leaders will discuss issues including military spending and how to guarantee Ukraine’s security once some sort of permanent cease-fire or peace deal is reached, including the possibility of troop commitments in Ukraine.

Trump officials have said that they expect the Europeans to be responsible for the main financial and military support for Ukraine in the future, but there is enormous vagueness around the whole issue. Europeans want to be at the negotiating table, if one is ever created.

Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, annoyed Europeans in Munich when he said that was unrealistic and that he foresaw a meeting between Russia and Ukraine with the United States as some sort of mediator. If the Europeans are supposed to secure and finance Ukraine, they say, they have a right to be part of any negotiation.

But Mr. Kellogg admitted in Munich that there is no fixed American plan, but that he and other officials are in “listening mode.”

The Paris meeting comes the same day that Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The State Department said he would be joined by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy.

They are supposed to discuss with Russian officials the future of the Russia-Ukraine war, but even those talks are more about how to set up future peace talks rather than about the substance of them.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was in the United Arab Emirates on Monday for a track of negotiations with Russia that is separate from the Trump administration’s effort, focusing on prisoner exchanges and returning Ukrainian children from Russia.

He reiterated that Ukraine would accept no terms negotiated between Russia and the Trump administration without Ukrainian participation, and confirmed that Ukrainian representatives would not be at the talks in Saudi Arabia.

“The issue of a peacekeeping contingent is being discussed in France,” Mr. Zelensky told journalists in Abu Dhabi. “Emmanuel told me he would share all the details. If we talk about a peacekeeping contingent, then what will be its size? Where will it be deployed? Which countries will be part of it? How will they be armed? It is crucial not to lose the U.S. in this process in one way or another.”

Mr. Zelensky also said that when it comes to making a deal with Russia, “Europe must be at the negotiating table — I don’t know in what format, but this is very important for us.”

Ivo Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO, who was in Munich, said Mr. Zelensky told the gathering that Europeans “have realized they’re in this boat together and can no longer rely on the U.S., and that the concern that Trump and Putin will do a deal over their heads is real.”

“So they have to depend on each other, and Europeans have to decide whether to step up to help the Ukrainians continue the war, if the proposed deal is a bad one, or to throw Kyiv under the bus, which would be appeasing Putin,” Mr. Daalder said. “They now realize that they have no real choice and that they have to back Ukraine, and that’s what this meeting is all about.”

But already there were fissures. The Paris talks included leaders from Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the president of the European Council, the president of the European Commission and the secretary general of NATO.

There was criticism from frontline European states who were not invited, with one senior Baltic official saying that Mr. Macron’s initiative splits the unity of the European Union, and that the meeting should have been called by European Council President António Costa, not by Mr. Macron.

“In public Europeans will say we all must stand together, but this selective meeting is not a good start to a united Europe on these issues,” said Mary Elise Sarotte, a diplomatic historian who wrote an influential book on the early days of NATO expansion, “Not One Inch.”

As he often does, Mr. Macron seized on a perceived vacuum in European leadership to call this informal meeting to talk about a collective response to what many perceive as an American retreat from decades of security responsibility in Europe, in order to focus on Asia and domestic challenges.

Mr. Macron has made calls for increased European sovereignty and capacity for self-defense a hallmark of his presidency, which he has sometimes called “strategic autonomy,” less reliant on Washington.

This meeting is expected to be the first of many among European leaders in the coming weeks, an adviser to Mr. Macron said, adding that the meetings would include other countries in the future.

“Europeans must do more, do better and work in a coherent manner toward our collective security,” the adviser, who insisted on anonymity in line with French political practice, said Sunday night.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said in an article published in The Daily Telegraph that he was “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.”

“Securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future,” Mr. Starmer wrote.

Mr. Macron has been speaking for months to European leaders about forming a cease-fire buffer force in Ukraine to ensure that any peace deal with Russia is maintained. But his original idea was to have European forces far from the front lines, to help Ukrainians with training and logistics.

Military experts have said that it is first necessary to decide what kind of force is required, with what kind of resources, and what happens if they are attacked by Russia. This is why European leaders have said that they must have guarantees of American involvement, even if American troops are not on the ground, for key weapons systems, air defense, air cover, satellite intelligence and the like.

But all that would depend on what kind of deal emerges and whether Ukraine would accept it. For that reason many other European leaders have said the discussion is preliminary, if not premature.

As a former NATO official, Camille Grand, said, “Europeans cannot reasonably be expected to provide the security guarantees for a deal they are not negotiating.”

Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said before the meeting that while it was necessary for Europeans to meet and prepare decisions, “nobody is currently planning to send troops to Ukraine, especially because peace is still far off.” German officials have regularly said that it is premature to discuss sending troops to Ukraine.

European leaders are also expected to discuss the acceleration of European defense capabilities, as many now believe that the United States will withdraw tens of thousands of American troops from Europe.

Just 23 of 32 NATO members now spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense — more than a decade after vowing to do so in 2014. And NATO has made it clear that 2 percent must be “a floor, not a ceiling,” and more must be spent. A new spending goal will be set at the NATO summit meeting this summer and is likely to be 3 percent or 3.5 percent.

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Edward Wong from Washington, D.C.