President Macron and Chancellor Merz are meeting in Berlin this evening to try and move discussions on Ukraine forward.
European and US negotiators have been working with the Ukrainians through the weekend.
Asked if the Americans had shifted their position to be more “evenly spread, the EU’s foreign affairs chief joked, “more evenly spread as to spread also to Russians?”
Kaja Kallas remains clearly sceptical of the US peace plans which some see as a copy-paste of Putin’s ideal outcome of the Ukraine war.
Trump’s first version suggested limiting the size of Ukraine’s army, forbidding Nato membership and for Ukraine to give up all of the Donbas region, even the part not occupied by Russia.
Kallas said that it was clear that Putin would want yet more if a deal along these lines was agreed.
“We have to understand that Donbas is not Putin’s end game. If he gets Donbas, then the fortress is down, and then they definitely move on with taking the whole of Ukraine. And if Ukraine goes, then other regions are also in danger. We know this from history and we should learn from history”, said Kallas.
EU foreign ministers have been meeting in Brussels to discuss the issue throughout the day, ahead of the meeting in Berlin this evening.
“We are at a critical juncture”, said Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Helen McEntee TD, speaking in Brussels this morning.
“It is very welcome to see significant conversations and engagement that’s happening between Ukraine and the US and in particular today in Germany where Germany will host a number of heads of state to further those discussions.
It’s absolutely vital that an agreement can be reached and that a ceasefire can be put in place.”