Europe Waits for Turkey Summit
European leaders are ready to wait Turkey Summit until after a possible meeting between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russia’s
Vladimir Putin in Turkey before pushing the US to announce fresh sanctions on Moscow, people familiar with the matter said.
Following conversations between US and European officials on Monday, it was clear the American side wanted to allow an opportunity for talks between Russia and Ukraine to take place on Thursday before increasing pressure on Putin, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
If Putin declines the meeting with Zelenskiy or Russia doesn’t agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on Thursday, European leaders will urge President Donald Trump to follow through with his threat to sanction Moscow, they added. So far the Kremlin hasn’t said if Putin will attend.
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has prepared options for the president to put more economic pressure on Russia should he choose so, Bloomberg previously reported. In a social media post on May 8, Trump said “the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions” if the ceasefire isn’t respected.
The Trump administration’s next steps on its approach to Russia have been unclear over the last 48 hours.
Turkey Summit on Saturday, the leaders of the UK, France and Germany thought they had secured agreement from Trump, along the lines of his social media post, to back a plan for a 30-day ceasefire starting Monday, with coordinated US and European sanctions on Russia to follow if Moscow kept up strikes on Ukraine.
However, Trump declined to publicly back that fresh time line and instead urged Zelenskiy to meet Putin in Turkey this week, a stance the Europeans didn’t expect but that Zelenskiy nonetheless accepted.
Turkey Summit conversations between US and European officials on Monday, the American side was unclear on whether it was still ready to impose sanctions on Russia if attacks continued this week, or what it would do if Putin refuses to meet with Zelenskiy and keeps attacking Ukraine, the European officials said.
Earlier on Monday, Trump floated the idea of flying to Turkey to join the potential meeting between Zelenskiy and Putin. “I was thinking about flying over,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “I don’t know where I’m going to be on Thursday — I’ve got so many meetings — but I was thinking about actually flying over there.”
US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said earlier this month that he has bipartisan support for a bill that would enact “bone-crushing” new sanctions on Russia including a 500% tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, petroleum products, natural gas or uranium.
With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak.