UN security council approves US resolution on Ukraine war that doesn’t mention Russia; Putin says Europeans can ‘participate’ in peace talks

UN security council approves US resolution calling for end to Ukraine war without mentioning Russia’s aggression

The UN security council has voted to adopt a US-drafted resolution to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine without mentioning Russia’s aggression.

The resolution received 10 votes in favour, while five members including the UK and France abstained from the vote.

As we reported earlier, the UN general assembly on Monday backed a resolution drafted by Ukraine and the EU condemning Russia and calling on it to remove its troops from Ukraine.

Key events

As we reported earlier, Russian President Putin has said that Moscow is ready to collaborate with the US on rare earth minerals production, but that a potential US-Ukraine deal was not a concern of Russia.

However he also said that any Russian deal with the US could potentially involve minerals in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.

US President Donald Trump earlier said that “major economic development transactions with Russia” would take place. Within two hours of Trump’s statement, Putin chaired a meeting with his ministers and economic advisers on rare earth metals.

We, by the way, would be ready to offer (joint projects with) our American partners, and when I say ‘partners,’ I mean not only administrative and governmental structures but also companies, if they showed interest in joint work,” Putin said on state TV after the meeting.

Truce between Ukraine and Russia could happen ‘in the weeks to come’, Macron says

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that a truce between Ukraine and Russia “could be done in the weeks to come”.

In an interview on Fox News after his meeting with US President Donald Trump, Macron said he had spoken with European leaders and many of them are ready to provide security guarantees.

The G7 nations are still discussing a possible joint statement to mark the third anniversary of the war between Ukraine and Russia, Canada’s foreign minister has said, noting a disagreement with Washington’s position on the conflict. Reuters reports:

“We’ve been working, indeed, with the Europeans and Americans. We are still having some conversations,” Canadian foreign minister Mélanie Joly told a virtual briefing with reporters when asked about the status of a joint G7 statement.

Canada holds the G7 presidency in 2025. Washington has been objecting to language on “Russian aggression” in any joint G7 statement on the war, Reuters reported last week.

“It is a fluid situation and we’ll continue to engage, but I’ve been foreign minister now for three years and a half, and it’s never been so intense in terms of diplomatic engagement, to say the least,” Joly added.

Summary of the day so far

It’s 1am in Kyiv, 2am in Moscow and 6pm in Washington. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

Donald Trump said the Russian leader Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the three-year war. Speaking before bilateral talks at the White House, French president Emmanuel Macron said Europe was prepared to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire including peacekeepers, although they would not be sent to the frontline. Trump said he saw no objection to European troops being sent to Ukraine to serve as peacemakers, adding that he had raised the idea with Putin.
Trump described a potential minerals deal with Ukraine as “very close” and said he might meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy soon to seal the agreement. Trump added that he would also be meeting Putin at some point. Zelenskyy last week rejected US demands for $500bn in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, contending that the US had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron visited Washington on Monday to discuss Ukraine and US-Europe relations with Trump. Macron told Trump that Europe is ready to “step up” defence spending but said he hoped for “strong” US involvement in securing any peace settlement in Ukraine. Macron said he and Trump would discuss “long-lasting peace” in Ukraine but that that Kyiv “must be involved” in talks to end the war.
The US split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three UN resolutions seeking to end the war. In the UN general assembly, the US joined Russia in voting against a Europe-backed Ukrainian resolution that called out Russia’s aggression and demanded an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops. The US then abstained from voting on its own competing resolution after Europeans succeeded in amending it to make clear Russia was the aggressor. The US then pushed for a vote on its original draft in the UN security council.
More than a dozen world leaders gathered in Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. A coordinated Europe-led show of solidarity took an overnight train for a summit with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, including the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb.
The coordinated Europe-led show of solidarity on Monday came after a torrid week, in which Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war against Russia, described Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections”, and made it clear Europe would have to enforce and pay for any future peace settlement. There was strong collective pushback against the US president’s upside down version of recent history and a consensus that Ukraine had to take part in negotiations over its future.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow will only cease its military actions if the outcome is “satisfactory” to Russia. He said that many more countries had become “realistic” in their position on Ukraine, and that the recent meeting in Riyadh raised the hope of having normal dialogue between Russia and the US.
EU foreign ministers have discussed sending billions of military aid to Ukraine, ahead of a summit dedicated to European defence next week. At a meeting in Brussels on Monday a handful of countries proposed military aid for Ukraine in 2025 ranging from €20bn to €40bn, according to several diplomatic sources.
The EU is spending more money on Russian fossil fuels than on financial aid to Ukraine, according to a new report. The EU bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, an amount equalling one-sixth greater than the €18.7bn the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024.
Downing Street said Trump has changed the global conversation around Ukraine “for the better”, as the UK imposed further sanctions on Russia in an effort to force Putin to make concessions. Keir Starmer’s spokesperson did not comment on Trump’s false claims that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a dictator. Starmer will hold talks with Trump in Washington on Thursday.

The EU has proposed an agreement with Ukraine on “critical materials”, an EU official said, even as the US seeks his own deal on accessing Kyiv’s minerals.

Stéphane Séjourné, the European Commissioner for industrial strategy, said he had suggested a different potential deal to Ukrainian officials during a visit to Kyiv with the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

“21 of the 30 critical materials Europe needs can be provided by Ukraine in a win-win partnership,” he said, adding:

The added value Europe offers is that we will never demand a deal that’s not mutually beneficial.

The UN security council vote on a US-led draft resolution calling for an end to the war in Ukraine came after France asked the 15-member council to postpone the vote.

The council rejected the proposal to postpone the vote with six votes in favour, three against and six abstentions.

During the council meeting in New York, the US ambassador Dorothy Shea said it was time to bring the UN and the UN security council back to its original purpose: the maintenance of international peace and security, including the peaceful settlement of disputes.

The US draft resolution “is elegant in its simplicity – a symbolic, simple first step toward peace,” she said, adding that “the three brief paragraphs echo the spirit of the UN Charter”.

UN security council approves US resolution calling for end to Ukraine war without mentioning Russia’s aggression

The UN security council has voted to adopt a US-drafted resolution to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine without mentioning Russia’s aggression.

The resolution received 10 votes in favour, while five members including the UK and France abstained from the vote.

As we reported earlier, the UN general assembly on Monday backed a resolution drafted by Ukraine and the EU condemning Russia and calling on it to remove its troops from Ukraine.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, in an interview on Monday, spoke about Moscow’s readiness to collaborate with the US on rare earth metals production.

Russia is doing little to extract rare earth metals and it should do more, Putin said, in quotes carried by state-owned Tass news agency.

Putin said that a potential agreement between the US and Ukraine on rare earth metals and other resources does not concern Moscow in any way. According to Tass, Putin said:

This does not concern us. I am not weighting up this issue in any way and do not even want to think about it.

Putin says Europeans can ‘participate’ in Ukraine peace talks

Vladimir Putin said Russia is not opposed to Europe’s involvement in talks to resolve the “crisis” in Ukraine.

In a televised interview reported by Agence-France-Presse, Putin said:

Not only European [countries] but other countries too have the right and can take part.

Donald Trump has changed the global conversation around Ukraine “for the better”, Downing Street has said, as the UK imposed further sanctions on Russia to force Vladimir Putin to make concessions.

As world leaders marked the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said the US president had opened the door to talks that could bring lasting peace.

However, continuing the UK’s careful response before Starmer’s visit to the White House this week, he did not comment on Trump’s false claims that Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a dictator, which have helped shatter the transatlantic consensus on the conflict.

On a day of frenetic diplomatic activity, Starmer, speaking via video link to world leaders gathered in Kyiv, said Trump had “changed the global conversation over the last few weeks” around Ukraine. He added:

It has created an opportunity. Now we must get the fundamentals right.

Pressed by reporters over whether Starmer had meant Trump’s explosive interventions had changed things for the better or worse, his spokesperson said:

Absolutely for the better. He’s brought about these talks that could bring lasting peace in Ukraine, which is what we all want to see.

Emmanuel Macron says Donald Trump was right to re-engage Russian leader Vladimir Putin but warned that any agreement over Ukraine had to include security guarantees.

“There is good reason for President Trump to re-engage with President Putin,” the French president told reporters.

I always think it’s good to have discussion with other leaders and especially when you disagree.

Donald Trump, taking questions from reporters, says he believes the talks between US and Russian officials in Riyadh last week were “fantastic”.

Trump says he has spoken to Russian leader Vladimir Putin and that “my people are dealing with him constantly”.

The US president says Russia “wants to end this war” and that it is to the “benefit” of Moscow to make a deal. He adds that he believes that Putin “wants to make a deal.”

“I may be wrong, but I believe he wants to make a deal,” Trump says.

Emmanuel Macron says France has spoken to the UK about deployments of peace forces on Ukrainian soil, and that “other countries” are ready to join in this effort.

“Solidarity and support from the US will be crucial to this,” Macron says.

Macron says he believes that France and the US have the “same wish: lasting, solid peace as soon as possible, and the renewal of an international situation where we are all able to shoulder our responsibilities.”

“I also wanted to be very clear, Mr President, about Europe’s commitment,” Macron says.

We have committed to building a lasting peace as Europeans. We have committed to being stakeholders and in these security guarantees, we are well aware that Europeans need to do more for security in Europe, for defense in Europe.

Macron says Europe is very “clear eyed” about what Europeans need to do “given the threats surrounding us and the responsibilities that we must shoulder.”

“Europeans are ready to do even more and to go even farther,” he says.

Macron says any peace agreement ‘must not mean a surrender of Ukraine’

Emmanuel Macron says he has spoken with some 30 European leaders and allies in recent days, and then lays out what he believes must be in any peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine.

“This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine,” Macron says.

It must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees. This peace must allow for Ukrainian sovereignty and allow Ukraine to negotiate with other stakeholders regarding the issues that affects it.

Ukraine is also a country “in which we need to shoulder our responsibilities so that we ensure security and stability for Ukraine and for the entire region,” Macron says.