In Copenhagen, Danish and Nordic leaders are meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is attempting to impose security guarantees on Kyiv in the event of a peace deal to put an end to Russia’s hostility there.
The Nordic-Baltic nations will talk about how to give Ukraine more support on the frontlines and in the negotiation room, according to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s office’s statement on Wednesday.
The leaders of the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden, are gathered to discuss Ukraine’s future with Zelenskyy.
Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, stated on Tuesday that Ukraine was making progress in implementing security guarantees, but he emphasized that such measures would only be implemented once a peace agreement was reached.
We need to coordinate security arrangements with the United States, which essentially will provide the backstop for this, Stubb told reporters. We’re focusing on these issues with our defense chiefs, who are creating the precise plans for how this kind of operation might look.
He continued, “We’re making progress on this, and hopefully we’ll find a solution soon,” but he expressed concern for a potential ceasefire or peace deal with Russia in the near future.
The “coalition of the willing”
At a summit of Ukraine’s allies on Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he anticipated clarity on what security guarantees Europe can offer Kyiv once the war is over.
At a press conference with Estonian President Alar Karis in Brussels, Rutte said, “I anticipate tomorrow, or soon thereafter, to have clarity on what we can deliver collectively.” That allows us to speak with the American side about their demands for their participation in security guarantees even more intensely.
The largely virtual meeting of the leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing,” a group of Western nations working on long-term agreements for Ukraine and NATO, will be co-hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. In Paris before the summit, Zellenskyy moves on to meet Macron tonight.
According to officials in the West, these guarantees are intended to deter Russia from starting a new war once the hostilities have ended, whether through a ceasefire or a permanent peace agreement.
They are anticipated to concentrate on an international force to reassure Ukraine as well as continuing military support for Kyiv. However, US involvement would only be possible with US support, according to European leaders.
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, promised American involvement last month, but Washington has not yet specified its contribution. Rutte hoped to reassure NATO members in eastern Europe that resources for Ukraine’s security guarantees wouldn’t go to the expense of the alliance’s own defenses.
He said, “We must always consider how the impact will be on the NATO plans, and this means we must avoid spreading our resources too thinly.”
Moscow, in contrast, opposes the idea of European troops stationed in Ukraine and insists that any upcoming resolutions must take into account “new territorial realities.”
For peace to last, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in an interview with Indonesia’s Kompas newspaper that regions that Russia annexed must be “recognized and formalized in an international legal manner” including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.
Many analysts believe that one of President Vladimir Putin’s main demands will be for Ukraine to acknowledge its authority over the Donbass, which is still under Kyiv’s control, as Trump has suggested any eventual agreement would involve ceding some territory.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly refrained from making these concessions, warning that losing any territory would stifle Russia’s ability to launch fresh attacks in the future. It is also prohibited by the Ukrainian Constitution.
In Kherson, Russia occupies more land.
Russia’s assault is getting worse in eastern Ukraine as the diplomatic process gets worse. Its forces claim to have encircled and now seized “about half” of the strategic city of Kupiansk in the northeast of Kharkiv. The Donetsk settlement of Fedorivka was reportedly under the control of the Ministry of Defense of Russia.
Russia launched a massive overnight airstrikes against targets in nine different regions of the sky. At least four railway workers were hurt, according to Ukrainian officials, while explosions erupted close to the country’s borders.
In an attack on the Znamianka community in the Kirovohrad region, according to Ukraine’s emergency services, five people were hurt and 28 homes were damaged. After strikes destroyed residential structures and started fires in Khmelnytskyi, transportation services were faced with “significant schedule disruptions.”
According to local authorities, two people died in the Polohivskyi district in Zaporizhia as a result of Russian shelling, and two more died in separate attacks in Kherson, Kyiv, and Donetsk. At least five civilians have been killed nationwide as a result of the most recent strikes, according to the independent news outlet Kyiv Independent.
Russia claimed that in the past 24 hours, it had shot down 158 Ukrainian drones, while claiming that nearly 100 people had been injured and killed by Ukrainian attacks across its border in the past week. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed that in the Belgorod region, three people were hurt by a Proletarsky drone strike by Ukraine.
Putin is attempting to strengthen ties with North Korea and China with this diplomatic maneuver. His meeting with Kim Jong Un, who was also present at Xi Jinping’s grand military parade on Wednesday, highlighted Moscow’s growing partnership with Pyongyang.
