UK asks European leaders not to make 'unhelpful running commentary' on Ukraine peace talks

LONDON

British officials are encouraging European leaders not to make "unhelpful running commentary" on Ukraine peace talks for fear that the US president will backfire and cut Europe out of the talks, according to media reports.

UK government officials are increasingly concerned about public comments on the future of Ukraine by some European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

According to the Telegraph, officials are concerned that making public demands to US President Donald Trump will backfire and cause him to pull Europe out of the Ukraine peace talks entirely.

It came as EU leaders issued public statements stressing their demand that Ukraine be included in talks to determine the ceasefire and the country's future, as well as highlighting Ukraine's right to shape its own future ahead of Trump's Alaska Summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Friday.

Trump earlier said Russia and Ukraine would swap territories as part of a peace agreement.

"It's very complicated. But we're going to get some (territory) back, and we're going to get some switched. There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we'll be talking about that either later or tomorrow," he said last week.

Exert influence behind the scenes

Insiders, according to The Telegraph, pointed out that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made no public comments on the discussions since a joint statement on Saturday evening, preferring to exert influence behind the scenes.

In a joint statement issued on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that only an approach combining active diplomacy, support for Ukraine, and pressure on Russia to end its war can succeed.

During a press briefing on Monday, Starmer's official spokesman did not explicitly request that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend the talks, despite public requests from EU officials.

According to the report, Downing Street officials have long argued in private that using access and influence behind closed doors is a better way to persuade Trump than publicly challenging him to take a position.

One British official told The Telegraph that he was concerned about the "unhelpful running commentary" coming from European leaders about the Trump-Putin talks this week.

"Unlike our European colleagues, we are not publicly out there making demands of the Americans," a source said.

The source added: "A lot of the way the Europeans seem to be behaving, they’re going to annoy the Americans; they’re going to annoy Trump if they start making demands and if they put out red lines.”