EU cautions US against 'dirty deal' on Ukraine after Trump-Putin talk

Russia's financial markets soared and the price of Ukraine's debt rose at the prospect of the first peace talks since the early months of a war soon to enter its fourth year, News.Az reports citing foreign media.

But Trump's unilateral overture to Putin, accompanied by apparent concessions on Ukraine's principal demands, raised alarm for both Kiev and the European allies in NATO who said that they feared the White House might make a deal without them.

In a blunt address to reporters at NATO talks in Brussels on Thursday, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas insisted that no deal "behind our backs" could work, as she accused Washington of "appeasement" towards Russia.

"Any agreement without us will fail because you need Europe and Ukraine to also implement the agreement," Kallas said.

"Any quick fix is a dirty deal."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said: "Nothing can be discussed on Ukraine without Ukraine or on Europe without Europe."

Trump, who made the first publicly acknowledged White House call with Putin since the February 2022 full-scale invasion, and then followed it up with a call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he believed both men wanted peace.

But the Trump administration also said openly for the first time that it was unrealistic for Kiev to expect to return to its 2014 borders or join the NATO alliance as part of any agreement, and that no US troops would join any security force in Ukraine that might be set up to guarantee a ceasefire.

Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and its proxies captured territory in the east in 2014, before its full-scale invasion in 2022 when it captured more land in the east and south.

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged in the past that full NATO membership may be out of reach in the short term and that a hypothetical peace deal could leave some occupied land in Russian hands.

But Kiev and its European allies made clear they were alarmed by Trump having opened negotiations with apparent concessions to Moscow, without first agreeing on a common position.