Ukraine and Europe worry about being sidelined as Trump pushes direct talks with Russia on war's end

Washington, Feb 17 (AP) President Donald Trump's approach to ending Russia's war against Ukraine has left European allies and Ukrainian officials worried they are being largely sidelined by the new US administration as Washington and Moscow plan direct negotiations.

With the three-year war grinding on, Trump is sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security advisor Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian counterparts, according to a US official who was not authorised to publicly discuss the upcoming diplomatic efforts and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The outreach comes after comments by top Trump advisors this past week, including Vice-President JD Vance, raised new concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that the Republican administration is intent on quick resolution to the conflict with minimum input from Europe.

"Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an address at the Munich Security Conference.

White House officials on Sunday pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation.

During his visit to Munich and Paris, Vance held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte as well as Zelenskyy.

"Now they may not like some of this sequencing that is going on in these negotiations but I have to push back on this ... notion that they aren't being consulted," Waltz said.

"They absolutely are and at the end of the day, though, this is going to be under President Trump's leadership that we get this war to an end," Waltz said.

Rubio, who was in Israel on Sunday before heading to Saudi Arabia, said the US is taking a careful approach as it reengages with Moscow after the Biden administration's clampdown on contacts with the Kremlin following the February 2022 invasion.

Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week and the two leaders agreed to begin high-level talks on ending the war. They were initially presented as two-way but Trump later affirmed that Ukraine would have a seat -- though he did not say at what stage.

"I think President Trump will know very quickly whether this is a real thing or whether this is an effort to buy time. But I don't want to prejudge that," Rubio told CBS' "Face the Nation".

"I don't want to foreclose the opportunity to end a conflict that's already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and continues every single day to be increasingly a war of attrition on both sides," he said.

Heather Conley, a deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Europe during Republican president George W Bush's administration, said that with Trump's current approach to Moscow, the US appears to be "seeking to create a new international approach based on a modern-day concert of great powers".

"As in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is only for the great powers to decide the fate of nations and to take -- either by purchase or force -- that which strengthens the great powers' economic and security interests," Conley said.

There is some debate inside the administration about its developing approach to Moscow, with some more in favour of a rapid rapprochement and others wary that Putin is looking to fray the Euro-Atlantic alliance as he aims to reclaim Russian status and wield greater influence on the continent, according to the US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump said last week that he would like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

"I'd like to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it's not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia," Trump told reporters.

The anticipated Saudi talks also come amid tension over Trump's push to get the Ukrainians to agree to give the US access to Ukraine's deposits of rare earth minerals in exchange for some USD 66 billion in military aid that Washington has provided Kyiv since the start of the war, as well as future defence assistance.

Zelenskyy, who met on Friday with Vance and other senior US officials in Munich, said he had directed Ukraine's minister to not sign off, at least for now.

Zelenskyy said in an interview the deal as presented by the US was too focused on American interests and did not include security guarantees for Ukraine.

The White House called Zelenskyy's decision "short-sighted", and argued that a rare-earth's deal would tie Ukraine closer to the US.

European officials were also left unsettled by some of Vance's remarks during his five-day visit to Paris and Munich last week in which he lectured them on free speech and illegal migration on the continent.

Throughout Europe, officials are now looking to recalibrate their approach in the face of the Trump administration's unfolding Ukraine strategy.

Macron will convene top European countries in Paris on Monday for an emergency "working meeting" to discuss next steps for Ukraine, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Sunday.

"A wind of unity is blowing over Europe, as we perhaps have not felt since the COVID period," Barrot told public broadcaster France-Info. (AP) SZM

Source: PTI