European leaders to discuss ceasefire plans in visit to Ukraine

The leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the UK are heading to Ukraine to discuss plans for a ceasefire in the war with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he will be hosting a summit in Kiev with the leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing. In a statement announcing the trip, the leaders said they needed the coalition to, quote, be strong enough to guarantee safety security. Earlier in the day, Friedrich Maerz made his first trip to Brussels as German chancellor and spoke about the prospect of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. The ball is exclusively in Moscow's court right now. It's exclusively there. To decide whether there is an opportunity to start at the beginning of next week with a longer ceasefire in Ukraine. And to make room for talks about a permanent peace in Ukraine. It's another test case, if you will, a very precise one, about how serious the Russian president is about reaching a permanent peace in Ukraine. For more on this, let's speak to Doug Klain, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Centre in Washington, DC. Doug, welcome to the programme. How important is it for Ukraine to have these four leaders meeting in Kiev? Well, this meeting happening tomorrow is shaping up to be something that could be quite historic. It will certainly stand in sharp contrast to the images we saw this morning out of Moscow as Russia celebrated its May 9 victory day over Nazism in World War II. World leaders such as Xi Jinping joined Putin to celebrate this and look out over Russian drones that for years have terrorised Ukrainian civilians. This meeting happening tomorrow, I think, is going to be quite necessary as European leaders look to figure out what could a future security guarantee for Ukraine look like. How can we ensure that any kind of peace deal will last and be permanent and that this war will not restart just a few years down the road? Right. The Kremlin supports a 30-day ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict, but only with due consideration of nuances. Could that be a reality soon? Well, the Kremlin has said that it supports a ceasefire and peace all along. It just so happens that the peace the Kremlin supports coincides with Ukraine's surrender and disarmament. The Kremlin has agreed in principle to ceasefires proposed by American President Donald Trump for months, but then Russia has gone on to violate these ceasefires immediately. And so I think that certainly from the US perspective now, Trump is looking at this situation and has to say, Ukraine has agreed to every ceasefire that we have proposed, but Russia has not. Is it time for real pressure to be put from the US side onto Russia? And how can Ukraine's hand be strengthened? Maybe that is the key for getting Russia to finally abide by a ceasefire rather than violate it. And what sort of pressure points are available? Well, two of the biggest pressure points are economic and military. You know, the United States can put in massive sanctions on Russia. In Congress right now, actually, there is a serious bill in the United States Senate to put massive sanctions on Russia, you know, over 500 percent tariffs, as well as energy and banking sanctions. And that has gained over 70 out of 100 US senators that have signed on to support it. They're just waiting for a green light from Trump to advance that legislation. Trump could also put in new military support for Ukraine. Ukraine is desperately in need of new air defenses. Russia is launching ballistic missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities. And the ballistic missiles in particular, only the American Patriot air defense system can really guard against those kinds of missiles. So there's quite a lot that Trump can do. He just has to choose to do it. That's Doug Plain from the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.