Ukraine will not be part of the peace talks agreed upon by Trump and Putin. This was announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose refusal is due to the secondary role that Washington had assigned to Ukraine in this dialogue opening tomorrow in Saudi Arabia. The Ukrainian president will also not recognize any agreements that may be signed at that table.
As those closest to Donald Trump had already warned, Ukraine would not be present in those talks, although later the Ukrainian delegation "would be informed" of the progress. Faced with this stance, Zelensky refuses to participate. The president states that "there will be no peace talks about Ukraine without Ukraine."
Additionally, Europe, which has been crucial in providing economic and military support to Ukraine during these three years of invasion, will not have a seat at this table either. Furthermore, the minimum document that Russia demands to negotiate ensures that the Kremlin does not give up the demands they had already put on the table in 2021, just before ordering the invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of 2022. In other words, not only the control of 20% of Ukrainian territory, but a change in the entire European security structure, something that is a humiliation for NATO and EU countries.
Zelensky's decision should serve to pressure Trump to finally allow Ukraine to sit at the table. If this is not achieved, the pact between Trump and Putin is doomed to fail, even if Washington cuts military aid to Kiev. In parallel, European leaders including Pedro Sánchez are meeting in Paris at the initiative of Emmanuel Macron to demand a role in decision-making for the day after the conflict, which so far Trump has denied them.
Zelensky also refused this weekend to sign the agreement on rare earths control offered by the Trump Administration, a document presented to him without being able to study it, which foresaw mining concessions of those lands in exchange for continued military aid. The Ukrainian president argued that there was no security guarantee in that text regarding the places where the US intended to extract minerals.