Europe won’t have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy said on Saturday, after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
United States Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia General Keith Kellogg told a global security conference in Munich that the US would act as an intermediary in the talks, with Ukraine and Russia as the two protagonists.
Asked about the prospects of the Europeans being at the table, Kellogg said: “I’m (from) a school of realism. I think that’s not gonna happen.”
At a later event at the conference, Kellogg sought to reassure Europeans by declaring this did not mean “their interests are not considered, used or developed”.
But European leaders said they would not accept being shut out of the talks.
“There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb told reporters in Munich.
“But this means that Europe needs to get its act together. Europe needs to talk less and do more.”
Stubb said the questionnaire the US sent to Europeans “will force Europeans to think”.
A European diplomat said the US document included six questions with one specifically for European Union member states.
“The Americans are approaching European capitals and asking how many soldiers they are ready to deploy,” one diplomat said.
