US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s international envoy, are set to meet Ukrainian officials in Paris at a summit Thursday aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defenses against Russia’s unrelenting invasion.
If Trump’s pledge to end the war in a day was far-fetched, the hope to secure a full truce by Easter – this weekend – also looks likely to fail. Russia has ramped up its strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks, despite Washington’s overtures to Moscow.
Those overtures have so far largely sidelined European powers and Kyiv, meaning Thursday’s summit will be the highest level meeting of Ukrainian and US officials in weeks.
Ukraine’s foreign minister and defense minister arrived in the French capital for the latest summit of the “coalition of the willing,” a cluster of Western nations pledging to defend Ukraine against Russia in the face of dwindling and uncertain US military backing.
Andriy Yermak, a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the ministers are “working on critical issues for the security of Ukraine and all of Europe.”
For Ukraine’s European allies, the summit offers a chance to gauge the Trump administration’s thinking on the war in Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies have been alarmed by Trump’s and Witkoff’s parroting of Kremlin talking points, and may view the talks as a chance to disrupt and dislodge those perceptions.
After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for a third time last week, Witkoff told Fox News that any peace deal in Ukraine will center on the “so-called five territories,” referring to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, and the four mainland Ukrainian regions Russia has occupied since its full-scale invasion in 2022, having previously suggested Ukraine may have to cede them under a truce.
Early Thursday afternoon, Witkoff and Rubio were greeted at the Elysee presidential palace by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been one of the leaders in European efforts to provide Kyiv with the security guarantees that the US will not.
A ‘deal’ proves elusive
Despite its ambitious pledges, the Trump administration has struggled to broker a lasting peace deal between the warring countries, and has been accused of using mostly sticks in its dealing with Ukraine while saving its carrots for Russia.
After the White House briefly cut weapons supplies and intelligence sharing to Ukraine in March, Kyiv swiftly agreed to the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
Following separate talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials later that month, the White House said both had agreed to the ceasefire on energy infrastructure and in the Black Sea – only for the Kremlin to announce it would only implement the agreement when sanctions imposed on its banks and exports are lifted.
The Center for Countering Disinformation, a Ukrainian think-tank, has pointed out that the supposed truce has done little to constrain Russia’s aggression. In the 22 days after the truce, the Russian army killed nearly 2.5 times more Ukrainians than during the same period before it was announced, the Center said in an update Tuesday.
In a sign of growing irritation with Moscow, Trump last week said that “Russia has to get moving,” but provided no deadlines or ultimatum if it did not.
While the Paris summit was underway, Kirill Dmitriev, a top Russian negotiator, claimed that many countries are trying to “disrupt” Russia’s dialogue with the US. He said Putin’s latest meeting with Witkoff was “extremely productive,” but that the dialogue was taking place in “very difficult conditions – constant attacks, constant disinformation.”