Foreign leaders visit Ukraine to show support on war’s third anniversary

Leaders from Europe and Canada are visiting Ukraine’s capital to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion in a show of support by some of Kyiv’s most important backers for the nation at war.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau were among the visitors greeted at the train station by Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha and the president’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak.

In a post on X, Ms von der Leyen wrote that Europe was in Kyiv “because Ukraine is in Europe”.

“In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny,” she wrote.

The guests, also including European Council president Antonio Costa as well as the prime ministers of Northern European countries and Spain, were set to attend events dedicated to the anniversary and discuss supporting Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelensky amid a recent US policy shift under President Donald Trump.

In the latest sign of Europe’s efforts to rework its strategy on Ukraine to respond to Mr Trump’s actions, Mr Costa on Sunday announced that he would convene an emergency summit of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels on March 6, with Ukraine at the top of the agenda.

“We are living a defining moment for Ukraine and European security,” Mr Costa said in a post on social media.

The three-year mark of the war in Ukraine came at a sensitive moment for Kyiv as Mr Zelensky navigates a rapidly changing international environment upended by Mr Trump’s changes to the US approach to the war.

The US leader has sought to follow through on his campaign promises to end the war quickly, though his methods for doing so have alarmed many in Ukraine and Europe who believe that his approach is too conciliatory toward Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that preparations for a face-to-face meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin were under way, and US officials have said that they had agreed with Moscow to re-establish diplomatic ties and restart economic co-operation.

And on Sunday, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state Tass news agency that Moscow and Washington would continue bilateral talks at the end of next week, adding that “quite a lot” of contact was ongoing between the Russian and American sides.

Leaders across the EU, fearing both that Mr Trump’s approach to Ukraine would lead to an unfavourable settlement for Kyiv and that they — some of Ukraine’s most important supporters — would be sidelined in negotiation for peace, have rushed to assert their own response to the rapidly shifting environment.

The EU’s top diplomat on Monday insisted that the US cannot seal any peace deal to end the war with Mr Putin without Ukraine or Europe being involved.

Kaja Kallas highlighted what she claimed were pro-Russian positions being taken up by the Trump administration.

“You can discuss whatever you want with Putin. But if it comes to Europe or Ukraine, then Ukraine and Europe also have to agree to this deal,” Ms Kallas told reporters in Brussels, where she is chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Ms Kallas travels to Washington on Tuesday for talks with US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

Asked whether the US administration is acting in the interests of Russia or Ukraine’s Western backers, she said: “If you look at the messages that come from the United States, then it’s clear that the Russian narrative is there very strongly represented.”

Ms Kallas rejected Mr Trump’s earlier inflammatory assertion that Mr Zelensky was a dictator for not having held elections after his regular term expired last year, saying, “Putin hasn’t had elections, or Russia hasn’t had elections, in 25 years.”

Ukrainian law prohibits elections being held while martial law is in place, and Mr Zelenksy said as recently as Sunday that after martial law is lifted “there will be elections and people will make their choice”.