President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet US Vice President JD Vance in Germany on Friday with a warning against trusting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as concerns mount in Kyiv and among its European allies that the Ukraine war will be settled over their heads.

The Munich Security Conference starts days after US President Donald Trump and Putin held watershed talks that have shaken Ukraine and America’s NATO allies, almost three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

Trump said he had agreed with Putin to soon start Ukraine peace talks and exchange friendly visits. The new US administration also signalled Ukraine would have to give up territory to Russia and that NATO membership for Kyiv was “impractical”.

Vance, ahead of his speech in Munich on Friday, sought to dampen European fears and said “the president is not going to go in this with blinders on,” in comments to the Wall Street Journal.

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“He’s going to say, ‘Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal,’” Vance added, stressing that there are economic and even “military tools of leverage.”

Vance said it was too early to say how much of Ukraine’s territory would remain in Russian hands or what security guarantees the United States and other Western allies could offer Kyiv.

“There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he said.

Zelensky on Thursday warned world leaders “against trusting Putin’s claims of readiness to end the war” and said he wanted the United States to agree a “plan to stop Putin” before any negotiations.

European concern
EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas warned Thursday that “any deal behind our backs will not work” and that “appeasement also always fails”.

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Kyiv’s European backers fear Trump could force Ukraine into a bad peace deal that will leave them facing an emboldened Putin on their doorstep — while paying the lion’s share of costs for post-war security.

Among the European leaders, diplomats and generals in Munich, many hold grave concerns over the deepening chasm between the transatlantic allies and even for the post-World War II international order itself.

European allies were stunned to be bluntly informed this week that the future task of helping secure Ukraine would fall to them alone, in line with Trump’s “America First” stance.

The head of the Munich conference, Christoph Heusgen, told German radio on Friday that “I suspect that today the American Vice President will announce that a large part of the American troops will be withdrawn from Europe”.

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Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford, wrote that America’s “message to Europe was pretty stark on Ukraine — it’s your problem. We will help cut a deal with Russia — but policing that is up to you.

“That is surely a green light for Putin to test that defence in Ukraine, meaning that Ukraine and Europe will hardly be secure as a result of a peace agreed by Trump.”

‘Just peace’
Zelensky, despite facing the prospect of having Ukraine’s key demands ignored after years of gruelling war, has pushed back with moderate language.

He said it was “not very pleasant” that Trump had called Putin first before speaking to him, while again insisting he wanted to hammer out a “plan to stop Putin” with the United States before any talks happen.

Zelensky was expected to redouble his efforts for more help from Europe to reach a “just peace”.

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Aside from Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also finally headed to Europe on Friday after his plane was forced to turn around due to a mechanical issue.

Trump said Thursday that “high-level people” from Moscow, Kyiv and Washington would meet in Munich on Friday — but the Ukrainian presidency said it did not expect to take part in talks with Russian officials and that “for the moment there is nothing on the table”.

Heusgen told German radio that no high-ranking Russian government officials had been accredited but did not rule out that there may be possible meetings outside the security conference.

Security was tight at the annual meeting in the Bavarian state capital, with police on heightened alert a day after a car-ramming attack injured 30 people, with an Afghan asylum seeker arrested at the scene.

AFP