Paris (AP) – Paris is organizing a series of talks on Thursday about Ukraine and its security, including the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, and the presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, French president Emmanuel Macron and senior Ucinian and European officials.
Rubio and Witkoff were having lunch discussions with Macron and “conversations with European counterparts to advance the goal of President Trump to end the Russia-Giraine war and stop blood spill,” said the State Department Tammy Bruce.
The meetings arise as concerns about the disposition of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to approach Russia, and after weeks of efforts from the United States to negotiate a stop fire in Ukraine. There is also frustration about Trump’s administrations, other movements, from tariffs on some of its closest partners to rhetoric over NATO and Greenland.
Witkoff with Thursday with the Ukrainian presidential advisor Andrii Yermak and the senior officials of France, Great Britain and Germany. Rubio was expected to meet later with French Foreign Minister.
The Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Andrii Sybiha, and the Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov, the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, foreign policy advisor to the German government and political director of the German Foreign Ministry were also in Paris for conversations on Thursday.
Yermak described them as “a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings with representatives of the states of the coalition of the willing that can guarantee security.”
Around 30 countries led by Great Britain and France have been discussing a possible coalition to monitor any future peace agreement with Russia. The success of the coalition operation depends on the United States backup with air power or other military assistance, but the Trump administration has not made any public commitment to provide support.
In Ukraine, a massive drone attack hit the city of Dnipro on Wednesday night, killing three people, including a child, said the regional leader. Ukrainian government officials and military analysts have said that Russian forces are preparing to launch a new military offensive in the next week to maximize the pressure on kyiv and strengthen the Kremlin negotiation position in high -fire conversations.
Rubio and Witkoff have helped lead the United States efforts to seek peace more than three years after Russia launched war. Several rounds of negotiations in Saudi Arabia have been held, and Witkoff last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has effectively refused to accept a high integral fire that Trump has pressed and Ukraine has supported. Russia has stopped it in the mobilization efforts of Ukraine and western weapons supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.
Moscow and Kyiv agreed last month to implement a 30 -day arrest in strikes on energy facilities, but Russia has maintained daily strikes. Both parties have deferred at the start time to stop strikes and alleged daily violations on the other side.
In Thursday’s conversations in Paris, Macron also plans to discuss the impact of Trump’s tariff policies and conflicts in Midasts, “in a logic of climbing in the region,” said the office of the French president.
