KYIV/LONDON — European leaders welcomed on Saturday US President Donald J. Trump’s plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war in Ukraine, while stressing the need to keep pressure on Moscow and protect Ukrainian and European security interests.

Mr. Trump plans to meet Mr. Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict.

The US president is open to a trilateral summit with Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky, but for now the White House is planning a bilateral meeting as requested by Mr. Putin, a White House official said. Russian and Ukrainian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the prospects of a trilateral meeting.

Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Mr. Trump said it would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.” It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory, an outcome Mr. Zelensky and his European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression.

US Vice-President JD Vance met British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and representatives of Ukraine and European allies on Saturday at Chevening House, a country mansion southeast of London, to discuss Mr. Trump’s push for peace.

A joint statement from the French, Italian, German, Polish, British and Finnish leaders and the President of the European Commission welcomed Mr. Trump’s efforts, while stressing the need to maintain support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia.

“We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests,” they said.

“We agree that these vital interests include the need for robust and credible security guarantees that enable Ukraine to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said, while adding: “The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.”

The leaders also said “they remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force,” and added: “The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”

They said negotiations could only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities.

Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who took part in the talks with European leaders and US officials, said Ukraine was grateful for their constructive approach.

“A ceasefire is necessary — but the front line is not a border,” Mr. Yermak said on X, reiterating Kyiv’s position that it will reject any territorial concessions to Russia.

Mr. Yermak also thanked Mr. Vance for “respecting all points of views” and his efforts toward a “reliable peace.”

A European official confirmed a counterproposal was put forward by European representatives at the Chevening meeting but declined to provide details.

The Wall Street Journal said European officials had presented a counterproposal that included demands that a ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken and that any territory exchange must be reciprocal, with firm security guarantees.

“You can’t start a process by ceding territory in the middle of fighting,” it quoted one European negotiator as saying.

A US official said hours-long meetings at Chevening “produced significant progress toward President Trump’s goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine, ahead of President Trump and President Putin’s upcoming meeting in Alaska.”

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about the European counterproposals.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke and pledged to find a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine and “unwavering support” for Mr. Zelensky while welcoming Mr. Trump’s efforts to end the fighting, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

It was not clear what, if anything, had been agreed at Chevening, but Mr. Zelensky earlier called the meeting constructive.

“The path to peace for Ukraine should be determined together and only together with Ukraine, this is key principle,” he said in his evening address to Ukrainians.

NBC News cited an unnamed US official as saying that the Trump administration was considering inviting Mr. Zelensky to join the US and Russian presidents at their Alaska meeting.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this, and Russian and Ukrainian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mr. Macron stressed the need for Ukraine to play a role in any negotiations.

“Ukraine’s future cannot be decided without the Ukrainians, who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,” he wrote on X after what he said were calls with Mr. Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Mr. Starmer. “Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake.”

‘CLEAR STEPS NEEDED’
Mr. Zelensky has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine’s allies since Mr. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow on Wednesday which Mr. Trump described as having achieved “great progress.”

Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Mr. Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia’s security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West.

Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab.

Moscow has previously claimed four Ukrainian regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.

Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions and Russia has demanded that Ukraine pull out its troops from the parts that they still control.

Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia’s Kursk region a year after they crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukrainian troops from Kursk in April.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the current peace push was the first “more or less realistic” attempt to stop the war but she remained skeptical about the agreements being implemented.

“There is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine,” she said.

Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold around a fifth of the country’s territory.

Russian troops are slowly advancing in Ukraine’s east, but their summer offensive has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, Ukrainian military analysts say.

Ukrainians remain defiant.

“Not a single serviceman will agree to cede territory, to pull out troops from Ukrainian territories,” Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers. — Reuters

FROM firing people to promoting jeans, calling for peace deals or the renaming of a sports team, President Donald J. Trump keeps a lot on his proverbial to-do list. Much of it is unrelated to running the country.

More than six months into his second term as US commander-in-chief, Mr. Trump, a former New York businessman and reality television host, has applied a hands-on management style and producer-like attitude toward governing, relying largely on his own instincts for decisions large and small.

Using the tools of social media and a propensity for bullying, Mr. Trump personally wades into issues inside and outside the federal government to get his way. He harangues company executives to invest in America and uses trade deals as leverage over foreign leaders to end conflicts.

Last week he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over unproven allegations she falsified figures that he didn’t like. This week he called for the head of Intel to step down over ties with China, and the company’s stock fell.

In recent months he has pressed the Washington Commanders football team to change its name back to the Redskins, forced universities to pay huge amounts to the federal government, boosted retailer American Eagle Outfitters’ shares with a compliment about a controversial jeans commercial featuring actor Sydney Sweeney and attempted to shore up Republican power by pushing for political redistricting in Texas.

Mr. Trump’s style, which can confound both his friends and his foes, is dramatically different from his more traditional predecessors. It has earned him condemnation for being caustic and praise for being effective at getting what he wants.

“While he delves into topics that are certainly distractions relative to the big business of leading the world’s greatest nation, it can also be said that past presidents have excessively deferred to the bureaucracy and failed to deliver the change their voters expected,” said Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former congressman from Florida.

“Trump views himself more as the CEO (chief executive officer) of the USA. than as president,” Mr. Curbelo added. “It’s good for decision making and challenging for the constitutional order which made our country the world’s greatest economic and military force.”

Mr. Trump has taken on academia, the legal world, media companies, athletics, the federal bureaucracy and more, all while retooling the world economy with tariffs, cracking down on immigration flows, upending relations with allies and putting his stamp on American culture.

Though he has a team of advisers, the President frequently follows his own counsel, making policy decisions and then announcing them himself, ramifications aside.

“I think what a lot of people miss about Trump is he’s the marketer-in-chief,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist with ties to the White House. “Not only is he his own best press secretary, he’s also his own best chief-of-staff.”

A POTUS WHO ‘CAN’T FOCUS’
Critics question why Mr. Trump gets bogged down in issues that are secondary to his goals of strengthening the US economy, for example, or achieving a peace deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“He’s commenting one moment on… Putin and tariffs and all that’s happening in the world and the next moment he’s talking about, oh, Sydney Sweeney, and all these other issues that are completely unrelated to being President of the United States,” said Charlie Dent, a Republican former congressman from Pennsylvania. “He simply can’t focus.”

The White House said Mr. Trump is using his skills to deliver on policy priorities. “President Trump’s leadership style can be summed up plainly as decisive and commanding,” said White House spokesman Harrison Fields.

Mr. Trump also employs a talent to distract when facing difficulty. Though that super power has largely eluded him with the controversy over sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Department of Justice’s refusal to release files related to the disgraced financier’s case, Mr. Trump’s broad ability to change the subject and dominate the news cycle has stupefied his opponents for years.

“His leadership style is much closer to that of an executive producer, and the executive producer who has a really big picture understanding of the audience,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

“I think he trusts his instincts about the audience over anybody else, and that’s why you see him oftentimes, you know, managing his own policy portfolio.”

Mr. Trump, though not a stickler for detail on all things policy-related, does get into the weeds on things he cares about, both cultural and political, including redecorating the Oval Office with gold, paving over the Rose Garden and building a new ballroom on the White House grounds.

On Tuesday, reporters bantered with the President while he walked on the roof of the White House press room, surveying the grounds for what he said were more ways to spend his money. The White House said Mr. Trump and other donors plan to pay for the $200-million ballroom project, which is slated to be finished before his second term concludes.

“I think narcissists do get bogged down in details because they think that everything is a reflection of them,” said Republican strategist Rina Shah. “When he decides to focus on the minutia, he’s forgetting about the bigger picture. And that’s kind of a disservice to the office.”

Where critics see such disservice, the White House sees results.

On the eve of presiding over a US-brokered peace framework between Azerbaijan and Armenia this week, Mr. Trump took to social media to tout his involvement: “Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now, thanks to ‘TRUMP.’” — Reuters

THE World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Friday approved a loan and investment worth up to $250 million in a polysilicon manufacturing project in Oman for solar power applications, over the objections of the IFC’s US executive director, the US Treasury department said.

Three other executive directors on the IFC board abstained from the vote on the United Solar Polysilicon project, including those representing Germany, the Netherlands and Nordic countries, two sources familiar with the vote said.

United Solar plans to build a $1.6-billion plant to produce 100,000 metric tons of polysilicon a year in Oman’s Sohar Port Freezone. The company has some links to China, partly through its chairman and founder, Zhang Longgen, a US citizen who was previously chief executive officer of Chinese polysilicon maker Daqo New Energy Corp.

A Daqo New Energy subsidiary, Xinjiang Daqo New Energy Co Ltd, is listed on the US Department of Homeland Security’s Uighur Forced Labor Protection Act Entity List, which bans its products from importation into the US.

“The United States voted against this project and will continue to use its voice and vote at the World Bank Group, as well as at all other multilateral institutions, to pursue America First principles,” a US Treasury spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. The department manages the dominant US shareholding in the World Bank Group.

A key United Solar shareholder, Chinese private equity investor IDG Capital, spent much of last year on a US Defense department list of companies with links to China’s military before its removal in December. Other shareholders include Zhang and Oman’s sovereign wealth fund.

The World Bank and IFC — its private-sector financing arm — did not respond to requests for comment.

IFC intends to provide a loan of up to $200 million and a preferred equity investment of $50 million, according to its disclosure sheet on the project.

At full capacity, the United Solar plant in Oman would produce enough polysilicon annually to supply solar panels producing 40 gigawatts of power.

China dominates the global production of polysilicon, a key ingredient in solar panels, and in its higher-purity form, a raw material for semiconductor production.

The sector is already suffering from massive excess capacity. Reuters reported last week that Chinese polysilicon producers are in talks to spend 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) to acquire and shut down roughly a third of their production capacity and restructure part of the loss-making sector.

One of the sources said the US and the abstaining countries viewed the project effectively as a new Chinese enterprise, supplied largely by Chinese state firms, and adding to excess capacity in the sector.

The Trump administration, in both of its terms, has pressed the World Bank to stop lending to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also called upon the bank and the International Monetary Fund to concentrate on their core development and financial stability missions and pull back from climate finance and gender projects.

The US last year approved a $325-million federal grant to Michigan-based Hemlock Semiconductor for a major expansion to produce semiconductor-grade polysilicon to support reshoring of the chip supply chain. — Reuters