Ukraine’s European allies say Russian aggression is pushing peace out of reach, as US envoy meets Putin

By Lauren Kent and Anna Chernova, CNN

(CNN) — Peace is out of reach for Ukraine due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing aggression, European defense ministers stressed Friday, even as the United States pushed ahead with talks with Moscow.

Top Trump administration official Steve Witkoff arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, according to Russian state media.

Putin and Witkoff will discuss Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, calling it “a good opportunity” to convey the Russian position to Trump. A possible Putin-Trump meeting may also be on the agenda, state news agency RIA Novosti cited Peskov as saying.

“The painstaking work continues. Naturally, Witkoff, as a special representative of (US President Donald) Trump, will convey something from his president to Putin. Putin will listen to it. The conversation will continue on various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement,” Peskov said, state media TASS reported.

Witkoff, who is Trump’s foreign envoy, also met Friday with Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin said earlier. On Saturday, he is slated to attend high-level Iran talks in Oman.

The US meetings in Russia come as Ukraine’s key allies gathered Friday in Brussels, where the defense ministers of the United Kingdom and Germany emphasized that Putin has continued his aggression against both military and civilian targets despite claiming to want peace.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting was co-hosted by the UK and Germany, with a noticeable absence at the table: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who only attended virtually.

The group of roughly 50 nations, which was created by former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration, meets regularly to discuss bolstering military support for Ukraine.

“Given Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, we must concede peace in Ukraine appears to be out of reach in the immediate future,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in a news conference immediately after the meeting, speaking alongside the Ukrainian and British ministers. “We will ensure that Ukraine continues to benefit from our joint military support. Russia needs to understand that Ukraine is able to go on fighting, and we will support it.”

British Defense Secretary John Healey noted that “today is one month to the day in which Russia rejected President Trump’s peace settlement.”

“Putin said he wanted peace, but he rejected a full ceasefire. Putin said he wanted peace, but he continues to drag his feet and delay negotiations. Putin said he wanted peace, but his forces continue to fire on Ukraine, military and civilian targets alike,” Healey said.

Friday’s meeting marks the first time a senior Pentagon official has not attended in person since the group was established in 2022 just months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which comes amid a series of policy shifts by the Trump administration seen as moving closer to Moscow.

During Austin’s time in office, he missed an in-person meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in 2024 following complications of cancer treatment. The US sent a top Pentagon policy official to convene the group instead and Austin attended virtually.

‘A matter of priorities’

Germany’s Pistorius said ahead of the Brussels meeting it was the Trump administration’s decision to attend virtually and was “not his business” to comment on the signal that sends.

“It’s not a matter of priorities. I think it’s a matter of schedules,” Pistorius added.

Ahead of the meeting, the British defense minister offered strong words of support for Ukraine and called for putting “even more pressure on Putin.”

“Our commitment is to put Ukraine in the strongest position to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and deter future Russian aggression,” Healey said in a statement.

New pledges of military aid announced after Friday’s meeting total more than €21 billion euros ($23.8 billion), Healey announced, calling it “a record boost in military funding for Ukraine.”

Germany will provide a further €11 billion ($12.5 billion) in military support to Ukraine through 2029, including IRIS-T mobile air defense missile systems and PATRIOT missiles, Ukraine’s defense minister said Friday from Brussels.

The United Kingdom and Norway will also jointly give an additional $589 million in military aid, to provide maintenance to vehicles, radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones.

Air defense is Kyiv’s priority, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said ahead of the meeting.

“We just need to address the shortage of air defense systems to make our sky protection stronger,” Zelensky said. “Our partners can help with this and also speed up the implementation of all agreements reached earlier. Patriots that remain unused in storage with our partners should be protecting lives.”

Zelensky said earlier this week that Russia was “preparing” a new offensive, as CNN reported that Russia’s army has increased operations across the front line in recent weeks.

Ukraine’s military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi told Ukrainian media on Thursday that Russia has “already begun” its new offensive against the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

Meanwhile, a new United Nations report revealed this week that Ukraine experienced a significant increase in civilian casualties from Russian attacks in March.

The number of civilian casualties was 50% higher than the previous month, with at least 164 people killed and 910 injured in March, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said.

CNN’s Matthew Chance, Svitlana Vlasova, Clare Sebastian and Catherine Nicholls contributed to this report.

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