Europe clambers to form Ukraine plan as U.S., Russia peace talks ramp up

European leaders are gathered in Paris on Monday for an emergency summit, hastily assembled by French President Emmanuel Macron after hopes of Europe’s involvement turned sour at the Munich Security Conference.

Washington and Moscow are set to kick-start discussions to bring about an end to the near three-year Russia-Ukraine war this week in Saudi Arabia, when U.S. President Donald Trump’s top diplomat Marco Rubio sits down with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov.

Trump said Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be involved in peace talks with Russia, dispelling conflicting remarks over recent days from U.S. officials. However, he did not say whether Zelenskyy or his team would attend preliminary talks in Riyadh or during a later meeting.

The EU and the U.K., however, are unlikely to have a physical seat at the negotiating table — either initially or as talks advance, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg said Saturday.

“What we don’t want to do is get into a large group discussion,” he told a fringe event in Munich, noting that allied interests would instead be “taken into account.”

Russia’s Lavrov, meanwhile, weighed in on the confusion Monday, saying, “I don’t know what countries are supposed to do at talks on Ukraine.”

The U.S. has instead asked European allies to complete a questionnaire outlining how many troops and capabilities they could deploy in Ukraine as security guarantees, according to Reuters. Other questions include what security guarantees Europe would view as a “sufficient deterrent to Russia while also ensuring this conflict ends with an enduring peace settlement.”

“For anything to work it has to have Ukrainians and Europeans as a part of it, because Ukrainians and Europeans are the ones who need to also implement the deal here in Europe, so without us any deal wouldn’t just work,” she told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on the sidelines of the MSC.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, warned Friday that failure to secure a “just and lasting peace” for Ukraine would not only “weaken Europe but it would also weaken the United States.”