Issuing a video of him leaving a plane, Zelensky wrote on X: “Our top priority is bringing even more of our people home from captivity. We will also focus on investments and economic partnership, as well as a large-scale humanitarian programme.”

He earlier stressed: “I will not meet with Russians but then I will not meet with Americans there.”

European countries will not create one unified army in response to threats from Russia, Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky yesterday called for the creation of a European army, saying the continent could no longer be sure of protection from the United States and would only get respect from Washington with a strong military.

Asked about the possibility of the creation of a European army, Sikorski told Poland’s TVP World that “we should be careful with this term because people understand different things”.

“If you understand by it the unification of national armies, it will not happen,” he said. “But I have been an advocate for Europe, for the European Union, to develop its own defence capabilities.”

Sikorski said the EU was currently forming a reinforced brigade.

Europeans must do “more and better” for their collective security now that events are speeding up under the pressure of the United States, Emmanuel Macron’s office has said on the eve of the Paris summit.

“We consider that, given the acceleration of the Ukraine question and as a result of what American leaders are saying, it is essential for the Europeans to do more, better and in a coherent way for our collective security,” an aide to President Macron said.

Macron will on Monday host leaders from key European countries to discuss the continent’s security amid growing concerns over US efforts to end the Ukraine war.

The heads of government of the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark will all be in attendance, along with the European Council president, Antonio Costa, the EU chief, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte.

Ukraine said it has recaptured a mining village near the embattled strategic city of Pokrovsk, which the two sides have fought over for months, after President Zelensky insisted his forces had made gains.

“A number of counterattacks by Ukrainian forces have had some success,” a spokesman for troops in the area, Viktor Tregubov, said on Ukrainian television. “We can already talk about the liberation of the village of Pishchane.”

The announcement came just over a month after Russia said it had seized Pishchane, about five miles southwest of Pokrovsk.

The village is home to a key mine that belongs to Ukraine’s main steelmaker, Metinvest. Tregubov acknowledged that it was not the first time Pishchane has changed hands but believed that “this time … it looks a little more serious”.

Zelensky has said that the military situation around Pokrovsk had “improved”, but did not provide details.

The US secretary of state has rejected concerns that Ukraine and other European leaders would have no place in peace talks, despite President Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, suggesting they would have no seat at the negotiating table.

Marco Rubio said Ukrainians and other European nations would be included in any meaningful negotiations.

“Ultimately, it will reach a point — if it’s real negotiations, and we’re not there yet — but if that were to happen, Ukraine will have to be involved because they’re the ones that were invaded [by Russia], and the Europeans will have to be involved because they have sanctions on Putin and Russia as well,” Rubio told CBS.

The US Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who is travelling to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Russian officials, told Fox News that Ukrainian officials had met several US officials in recent days.

President Zelensky has said Vladimir Putin is a serial liar who has set his sights beyond Ukraine and and cannot be trusted as a negotiating partner.

The Ukrainian leader added it would be “very, very difficult” for his country to survive without US military assistance.

“Of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance, but we will have a low chance, low chance to survive without the support of the United States,” he told NBC News.

Zelensky said Ukraine has increased its defence spending domestically but said a break in support from Washington would damage the morale of Ukrainians fighting on the front lines.

He also said that Ukraine had not been invited to peace talks in Saudi Arabia.

An aide close to Zelensky said: “It is dangerous to speak with enemies before you speak with allies. Ukraine’s position remains unchanged. We need to have a joint position of Ukraine, the US and Europe before any negotiations with Putin.”

The United States has sent European governments a set of questions about what they would need from Washington in order to provide Ukraine with security guarantees.

A US State Department spokesperson said Washington “has been clear that we expect European partners to take the lead in establishing a durable security framework and look forward to their proposals”.

The questionnaire, seen by Reuters, asked how many troops European nations could contribute to enforcing a peace agreement.

Among other things, it also asked “what additional capabilities, equipment and maintenance sustainment options” each country was willing to provide to Ukraine and what increased sanctions each government would be willing to impose on Russia.

The next few days will determine if President Putin is serious about peace, the US secretary of state has said.

“President Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin last week, and in it, Vladimir Putin expressed his interest in peace, and the president expressed his desire to see an end to this conflict in a way that was enduring and that protected Ukrainian sovereignty,” Marco Rubio told CBS.

He said any potential talks would need to broker an “enduring peace” and not lead to “another invasion in three or four years”.

Rubio said he had also spoken over the phone to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to “establish communications that are consistent with the call” between Trump and Putin.

Marco Rubio

KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has stressed that “nothing is finalised” for the upcoming talks with Russia on ending the war in Ukraine, warning it would not be a “not a one meeting thing”.

Donald Trump had repeatedly insisted he would end the conflict in a single day if he returned to the White House, but Rubio said it would “not be easy” to resolve such a long-running, bloody and complex conflict.

Rubio is set to lead a high-level US team at the discussions with Russian officials in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the coming days.

It is not clear if there will be any Ukrainian participation, and Rubio said he was not even sure who Moscow was sending.

“Nothing’s been finalised yet,” he told CBS, adding that the aim was to seek an opening for a broader conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war”.

The United States is no longer an “ally” of Europe, the former deputy assistant secretary general of Nato has warned.

Stefanie Babst told Times Radio that President Trump has “switched sides” to align the US with “the pariah state” Russia” and the “war criminal” President Putin, rather than commit to Europe.

“We can certainly no longer rely on the trans-Atlantic relationship as we have come to know it for the past 75 years. And we have to create something new,” Babst argued.

“I don’t think that the Trump administration is prepared to really commit any longer to Nato, to the trans-Atlantic alliance as such.

“President Trump has made clear on a number of occasions that he couldn’t care less for Ukraine and he couldn’t care really less for European security. Other than that, he would have acted differently.”

Steve Witkoff said he was hopeful about making progress during the talks with Russian officials over ending the Ukraine war

JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON/AP

The White House Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has said he would travel to Saudi Arabia later today with national security adviser, Mike Waltz, for talks on how to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

His remarks were the first official confirmation that the talks would take place.

“I am going tonight,” Witkoff told Fox News. “I’ll be travelling there with the national security adviser, and we’ll be having meetings at the direction of the president, and hopefully we’ll make some really good progress.”

The upcoming talks will be among the first high-level in-person discussions between Russian and US officials in years. They are intended to precede a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian drone attacks killed four people in two incidents on Sunday in the Russian region of Belgorod which border Ukraine, the governor has said, as fighting continued while world leaders discussed possible peace talks.

The regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a woman died in an attack near the border, southeast of the regional administrative centre of Belgorod. Three men were killed later in a similar attack further east, also near the border. All four were travelling in cars.

Belgorod has frequently come under Ukrainian shelling during the conflict, which erupted nearly three years ago.

A proposed deal with the United States for access to Ukraine’s critical minerals would not work if security guarantees sought by Kyiv were not provided, President Zelensky said in a broadcast interview on Sunday.

“If we are not given the security guarantees from the United States, I believe that the economic treaty will not work,” Zelensky told NBC. “It must all be fair.”

Speaking on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky had said the proposed accord was “not in our interest today”.

Donald Trump is seeking $500 billions worth of rare earth material “as compensation” for support already given to Ukraine by the Biden administration and as payment for future aid.

It’s not only at home that the Trump administration is stretching conventions and extending the limits of presidential power. Last week Vice-President Vance turned up in Europe to tell allies how to run their countries. He told a stunned audience at the Munich Security Conference he was worried less about Russia or China than “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values”.

He criticised Britain for prosecuting an anti-abortion protester and German leaders for trying to keep the far right out of government. As if revelling in the negative reaction from what he doubtless considered was a room full of the globalist elite, Elon Musk posted about Mega: “Make Europe Great Again”.

World leaders must now adjust to the pace of diplomatic initiatives coming from Washington. Donald Trump has said he hopes to meet President Putin soon and expects the encounter to take place in Saudi Arabia. The Russian president has invited him to Moscow, which would enable him to portray Trump as a supplicant coming to talk terms over the heads of the Ukrainians.

• Mark Urban: emperor Trump is even now scorching a path towards Iran

Finland’s president on Sunday urged for the rearmament of Ukraine and putting “maximum pressure on Russia” through sanctions and asset freezes in the lead-up to possible negotiations.

The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb

KIMMO BRANDT/EPA

On the final day of the Munich Security Conference, President Stubb and other European leaders sought to plot how the European Union can move from talk to more action and stay relevant as Washington pushes to stop the fighting. He laid out three phases: “pre-negotiation,” ceasefire and long-term peace negotiation.

“The first phase is the pre-negotiation, and this is a moment when we need to rearm Ukraine and put maximum pressure on Russia, which means sanctions, which means frozen assets, so that Ukraine begins these negotiations from a position of strength,” he said.

The mood among officials in Moscow is markedly more upbeat following the call between Trump and Putin

TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is a “powerful signal” that the two countries will now “resolve problems through dialogue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told Russian state TV.

“And now we will talk about peace, not war,” Peskov added, claiming that under Joe Biden, Washington’s attitude could be summed up as “no dialogue, war to the end”, while the new administration wants to negotiate.

“Such a position, in theory, should be more appealing to any rational person or state,” he said.

On Western sanctions against Russian officials, he dismissed them as irrelevant to Kremlin negotiations: “Western sanctions can be imposed quickly, lifted quickly, or last for decades if they wish.”

Donald Tusk, left, and Olaf Scholz, right, will join President Macron in Paris on Monday

MICHAEL KAPPELER/DPA/AP

Six European diplomats said invites had gone at least to Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy, Denmark — to represent Baltic and Scandinavian countries — the European Union leadership and the Nato secretary general.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will attend the summit, sources in Berlin told Reuters, as will the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, a member of Poland’s upper house of parliament said.

After Wednesday’s conversation between the US and Russian presidents, Donald Trump said that they had “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” and that the two men would meet.

This is only the start of a process where the outcome is by no means guaranteed, and in which Ukraine will have much more of a say than Trump seems to believe. Nonetheless, it is clear that he wants to end the war (and perhaps pocket a Nobel peace prize into the bargain) and sees direct negotiations with Moscow over Kyiv’s head as the way to achieve that.

The Kremlin’s “guerrilla geopolitics”, relying on leveraging western weaknesses as much as Russia’s strengths, seems to be paying dividends again. Finding friends in Africa and Asia, disrupting the domestic politics of countries across Europe and the Caucasus and expanding the Brics alternative trading bloc (as Putin has managed to do throughout the war) is one thing.

• Mark Galeotti: Putin’s no longer a pariah — and his ambitions lie beyond Ukraine

Russian drone strikes have damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight, leaving at least 100,000 people without heating as temperatures plunge below freezing, senior Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.

“This has nothing to do with the fighting and the situation at the front, but it proves once again that the Russians are fighting against our people and against life in Ukraine,” President Zelensky said.

“And they are fighting meanly, without relieving pressure. This is not what those who really want peace to be restored and are preparing for negotiations do.”

The United States has raised the prospect of working with the Kremlin on a package of “bilateral issues” beyond Ukraine as American and Russian negotiators prepare for peace talks in Saudi Arabia.

A team led by Steve Witkoff, a billionaire New York property developer and old associate of President Trump, is expected to travel to Riyadh imminently amid deep confusion over what exactly Washington is seeking to achieve.

Europe has been sidelined from the process and there are mixed signals as to whether Kyiv will be included in the discussion over its future.

• Ukraine talks: Russia and US will discuss trade as well as peace

US troops will not participate in any future peacekeeping force in Ukraine (American air cover may still be provided), leaving Britain and France to shoulder the burden. Ukraine is unlikely to join Nato, and America is no longer “primarily focused” on European security.

Spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence was now merely a “starting point” for Nato member states, and Hegseth was clear that Trump expected them to hit 5 per cent, double the amount Sir Keir Starmer has promised.

On Friday, during a visit to Poland, Hegseth warned that America’s military presence in Europe may not “last for ever”.

On Saturday Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said the 30-year peace dividend that flowed from the ending of the Cold War was over. The question Starmer’s government must now answer is whether it is ready to pay the peace premium that will inevitably follow.

• As Trump issues defence demands, can UK pay the peace premium?

European capitals are fuming after Keith Kellogg, US special envoy to Ukraine, said they could not expect a seat at the table for the imminent peace talks.

Emmanuel Macron said that only President Zelensky could negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. He warned against the danger of US “capitulation” to Russia, after talks between the US president and his Russian counterpart.

“The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably, and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis. After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia,” Macron said. “We all need to stay collectively vigilant.”

Macron believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now the impending retreat of the United States from defending Europe, have reinforced his long-standing argument that Europe needs to equip itself with an “autonomous” defence capacity, as part of the Nato alliance.

Eddy Scott lost his left arm and leg in a Russian attack

OKSANA PARAFENIUK

From his hospital bed in Kyiv, a young British sailor raged against what he saw as the appeasement of Vladimir Putin by President Trump. “Ukraine is being straight up abandoned and fed to the dogs,” he said. “All the tens and thousands killed and wounded count for nothing.”

For Eddy Scott this is personal. The 28-year-old from Dorset lost his left arm and leg in a Russian attack two weeks ago. “I’ve been on the wrong end of a drone,” he shrugged.

Scott has been volunteering in Ukraine since shortly after the full-scale invasion three years ago, leading a strange double life of sailing superyachts around Caribbean islands for some of the richest people on Earth, then spending his earnings aiding and rescuing Ukrainians near the front lines.

• Christina Lamb: Briton maimed by Russian drone says Ukraine ‘being fed to dogs’

The prime minister will be among European leaders meeting President Macron in Paris

AURELIEN MORISSARD/AP

France has confirmed that President Macron will host an emergency meeting of European leaders on the situation in Ukraine in Paris on Monday.

Sir Keir Starmer, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, will be among those attending, diplomats said. The leaders of Italy, Spain and Denmark are also likely to attend. The Elysée palace had been scrambling to put together the session since Friday.

“The president will bring together the main European countries tomorrow for discussions on European security,” Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign minister, told France Inter radio.

Macron has been impatient for Europe to forge a robust initiative after what Paris sees as an effort by President Trump and his new administration to engineer a peace deal that will reward Russia behind the backs of the EU and Kyiv.

Grant Shapps was the last Tory defence secretary before the general election

MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The UK should “step up” and increase defence spending to more than 3 per cent, Grant Shapps, the former defence secretary, said.

Shapps told Times Radio that the 2.5 per cent target set by both the Labour government and the previous Conservative government was no longer enough.

“We do need to go to three per cent and beyond,” he said. However, Shapps added that the bigger issue was that the rest of Europe did not spend what was required on its own defence. “We actually have countries in Europe who enjoy the freedoms that Nato brings them don’t pay a penny into European defence.”

Donald Trump has called on Nato members to spend five per cent of GDP on defence.

Franziska Brantner in Munich this weekend

ALAMY

Franziska Brantner, a senior official in the German economics ministry and joint leader of the Green party, said the Trump administration was waging an “economic battle” against the EU.

She cautioned that if cracks opened up within the bloc then the US would start crippling individual member states with targeted tariffs.

“The only way to survive is if we say whoever gets caught by tariffs, we will respond united,” Brantner said.

“If we give up on this we will be terribly divided and we will have no chance to survive in this economic battle”.

The prime minister of Luxembourg has criticised Monday’s “emergency” European leaders’ meeting in Paris for excluding most EU member states.

Luc Frieden said all 27 EU countries should have a role to play

OLIVIER HOSLET/EPA

President Macron has invited a handful of his peers to hammer out a common position on the US-Russian peace talks after a series of deep rifts opened up in the trans-Atlantic relationship this week.

The guest list is expected to be more or less limited to the “Weimar Plus” countries, meaning Germany, France, Poland, Britain and Italy, and possibly including the secretary general of Nato.

Luc Frieden, Luxembourg’s premier, warned that this could open up strategic divisions between this select club and some of the other 23 countries in the EU.

“I prefer that we are meeting 27 together,” he told the Munich security conference. “We need to be united … I don’t mind that some countries meet if they discuss military issues in the light of their military competence and what they have done so far in Ukraine but it’s much better that we meet as the 27.”

President Zelensky said that a deal with the US for rare earth minerals in return for military aid “does not protect” Ukraine.

“It’s not in our interests today,” he told reporters at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday night. “Not in the interest of a sovereign Ukraine.”

President Trump has suggested he wanted the equivalent of $500 billion worth of rare earth as “compensation” for the billions the US has spent on the war in Ukraine. “We can’t continue to pay this money,” Trump had said earlier.

Britain will increase defence spending within months, a cabinet minister has promised.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, told Sky News: “The whole cabinet, the whole government, I think most people in this country recognise the pressures the world is under, recognise more will have to be spent on defence.”

The British Army has been repeatedly cut back since the end of the Cold War

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

He promised a spending review in June would set out a “roadmap” for increasing spending from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent.

Labour committed to the target in its manifesto but has yet to say when it will be achieved, pending a review of Britain’s defence strategy.

Reynolds hinted other departments may have to be cut to hit the goal, saying: “The chancellor knows more than most people the pressures on public services across the board, but defence has to be the cornerstone of our national prosperity as well as our security.”

Britain has warned President Trump that talks on the future of Ukraine will fail if he shuts out Europe, offering to act as a “bridge” between the US and EU.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said there could be “no durable peace” without Europe and Ukraine itself being involved in shaping its terms.

He would not rule out British troops being part of a future peacekeeping deal, saying the UK will “play our part”, stressing: “It’s in our national interests to make sure that’s a durable peace.”

Reynolds used a round of interviews this morning to deny a “fundamental breach” in the trans-Atlantic relationship, but accepted Europe was entering a “new era” for security.

Acknowledging a “very assertive agenda from the US”, Reynolds sought to appeal to Trump’s competitive instincts to urge him not to give way to Russian demands. “The president is somebody who likes to win, and winning would not be rewarding a war of aggression,” he said.

European countries will not create one unified army in response to threats from Russia, Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky yesterday called for the creation of a European army, saying the continent could no longer be sure of protection from the United States and would only get respect from Washington with a strong military.

Asked about the possibility of the creation of a European army, Sikorski told Poland’s TVP World: “We should be careful with this term because people understand different things.”

He continued: “If you understand by it the unification of national armies, it will not happen. But I have been an advocate for Europe, for the European Union, to develop its own defence capabilities.”

Sikorski said the EU was currently forming a reinforced brigade.

European countries will not create one unified army in response to threats from Russia, Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky yesterday called for the creation of a European army, saying the continent could no longer be sure of protection from the United States and would only get respect from Washington with a strong military.

Asked about the possibility of the creation of a European army, Sikorski told Poland’s TVP World that “we should be careful with this term because people understand different things”.

“If you understand by it the unification of national armies, it will not happen,” he said. “But I have been an advocate for Europe, for the European Union, to develop its own defence capabilities.”

Sikorski said the EU was currently forming a reinforced brigade.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky has begun his trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, after insisting he had no plans at the moment to meet with Russian or American officials.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, is also heading to Saudi Arabia on Monday, along with other American officials, before visiting the UAE. There he will meet Russian officials to discuss paths towards a peace negotiation. It appears Zelensky will not be present, despite being in the same region.

Issuing a video of him leaving a plane, Zelensky wrote on X: “Our top priority is bringing even more of our people home from captivity. We will also focus on investments and economic partnership, as well as a large-scale humanitarian programme.”

He earlier stressed: “I will not meet with Russians but then I will not meet with Americans there.”