Matthew Whitaker spoke as Europeans put pressure on US to include Ukrainian president in meeting with Putin

The US ambassador to Nato said on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could attend this week’s US-Russia summit in Alaska, as European leaders push for Kyiv to be part of the negotiations.Ambassador Matthew Whitaker was asked on CNN whether Zelenskyy might join US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday. “Yes, I certainly think it’s possible,” he said. “Certainly, there can’t be a deal that everybody that’s involved in it doesn’t agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it’s a high priority to get this war to end.” Whitaker said the decision would ultimately be Trump’s to make. “If he thinks that that is the best scenario to invite Zelenskyy, then he will do that,” he said, adding that “no decision has been made to this point.”

Germany warned the White House on Sunday against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved. “We cannot accept in any case that territorial questions are discussed or even decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” he told the broadcaster ARD. “I assume that the American government sees it the same way.”

US vice-president, JD Vance, speaking a day after meeting the UK foreign minister, David Lammy, said he did not think it would be productive for the Russian president to meet his Ukrainian counterpart before speaking with Trump. “We’re at a point now where we’re trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,” he told Fox News.

Zelenskyy thanked European allies for rallying around ahead of the Alaska summit after European leaders issued a coordinated statement on Saturday night that said the “path to peace” in Ukraine could not be decided without Kyiv. In a post on X he said: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people.”

EU foreign ministers will discuss the Alaska talks in a meeting by video link on Monday, joined by their Ukrainian counterpart . “The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security,” top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Sunday.

Russian shelling and drone attacks killed six people in Ukraine on Sunday, authorities said, while a Russian strike on a bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia wounded at least 19 . The six people were killed across the eastern regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, their respective authorities said.

Two people died in the Tula region as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack that also targeted Moscow and other Russian regions, Russia’s regional official and the defence ministry said late on Sunday . Two people have also been hospitalised following the attack on the Tula region that borders the Moscow region to its north, Tula governor Dmitry Milyaev said on the Telegram messaging app.

Kyiv said it had hit two oil refineries deep inside Russia, one in the western Saratov region and one in the remote northern town of Ukhta in the Komi Republic, AFP reported . The governor of Saratov, Roman Busargin, only gave a vague comment about it, saying that “one of the industrial enterprises was damaged” and adding that one person had died as a result of the drone attack. The Komi governor confirmed in his Telegram channel there had been a drone attack on the region, but didn’t mention the Ukhta refinery and said there were no casualties.

Ukraine ’ s military said on Sunday it had taken back a village in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains . The village is on the frontline in the north of the country and about 20 kilometres (13 miles) west of the main fighting between the two armies in the northern region.