US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday the next few days would determine how serious Russian President Vladimir Putin was about peace in Ukraine, as US officials flew out to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Russian officials.
French President Emmanuel Macron will host European leaders, including Britain’s prime minister on Monday for an emergency summit on the Ukraine war after US officials suggested Europe would have no role in any talks on ending the conflict.
The Kremlin said on Sunday that the significance of the phone call between Putin and Trump was that now Russia and the US would speak about peace and not war.
Coming days will show if Putin is serious about Ukraine peace, says Rubio
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday the next few days would determine how serious Russian President Vladimir Putin was about peace in Ukraine, as US officials flew out to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Russian officials.
The top US diplomat also played down European concerns about being cut out of the opening talks between Russia and the US, saying in an interview with CBS that a negotiation process had not yet begun in earnest.
Earlier on Sunday, Reuters reported that US officials had handed European officials a questionnaire asking, among other things, how many troops they could contribute to enforcing a peace agreement. But no European allies were invited to Saudi Arabia, where Russian and US officials are expected to kick off talks early in the week about ending the Ukraine war.
“President Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin last week, and in it, Vladimir Putin expressed his interest in peace, and the president expressed his desire to see an end to this conflict in a way that was enduring and that protected Ukrainian sovereignty,” said Rubio on CBS’s Meet the Press.
“Now, obviously it has to be followed up by action, so the next few weeks and days will determine whether it’s serious or not. Ultimately, one phone call does not make peace."
US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz were due to leave for Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening, Witkoff said in a Fox News interview earlier in the day. Rubio noted he was due to be in Saudi Arabia anyway due to previously arranged official travel. The composition of the Russian delegation had not yet been finalised, said Rubio.
Rubio and Witkoff rejected concerns that Ukraine and other European leaders would have no place at peace negotiations, despite Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg suggesting precisely that at this weekend's Munich Security Conference.
Rubio said that Ukrainians and other Europeans would be included in any meaningful negotiations.
“Ultimately, it will reach a point — if it’s real negotiations, and we’re not there yet — but if that were to happen, Ukraine will have to be involved because they're the ones that were invaded [by Russia], and the Europeans will have to be involved because they have sanctions on Putin and Russia as well,” said Rubio.
“We’re just not there yet.”
Asked if he had discussed lifting sanctions on Russia during a Saturday phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Rubio declined to confirm this, saying only that they “did not go into any details”.
After that call, Moscow said that the two had discussed the removal of “unilateral barriers” set by the previous US administration in relations with Russia.
Rubio said he did address the “difficult” operating conditions of the US embassy in Moscow with Lavrov. If there was to be progress in Ukraine peacemaking, both Russia and the US would need properly functioning embassies in the other country, he added.
Macron to host emergency European summit on Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron will host European leaders, including Britain’s prime minister on Monday for an emergency summit on the Ukraine war after US officials suggested Europe would have no role in any talks on ending the conflict.
The French presidency said on Sunday Macron had called for the “consultation talks” and that they would address the tumultuous change in the US approach to Ukraine and the attendant risks to the security of the European continent.
Others at the summit meeting will be German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa from the European Union.
Trump stunned European allies in Nato and Ukraine last week when he announced he had held a call with Putin without consulting with them and would start a peace process.
Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, jolted Europe further on Saturday when he said it would not have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, even after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
The US has also asked European allies in Nato what they would need from Washington to participate in Ukraine security arrangements, according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
Dozens of similar summits have shown the 27-nation EU to be dithering, disunited and struggling to come up with a cohesive plan to end the Ukraine war on its doorstep and deal with Russia, three years into Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour.
Peace is the focus now for Russia and US, says Kremlin
The Kremlin said on Sunday that the significance of the phone call between Putin and Trump was that now Russia and the US would speak about peace and not war.
“This is a powerful signal that we will now try to solve problems through dialogue,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state TV Kremlin reporter Pavel Zarubin in a clip released on Sunday. “Now we will talk about peace, not war.”
Peskov said the first meeting between Putin and Trump had a special significance given current circumstances, adding that the Western sanctions would not prevent Russia-US talks as they could be “lifted as quickly as imposed”.
Four killed in Ukrainian drone attacks in Russia’s Belgorod region
Ukrainian drone attacks killed four people in two incidents in Russia’s Belgorod border region on Sunday, said the regional governor.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a woman died on the spot in an attack near the border, southeast of the regional administrative centre of Belgorod.
Three men were killed later in a similar attack further east, also near the border. All four were travelling in cars.
Belgorod has frequently come under Ukrainian shelling during the nearly three-year-old conflict.
Russian strikes hit Ukraine power plant
Russian drone strikes damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight, leaving at least 100,000 people without heating as temperatures plunged below freezing, said top Ukrainian officials on Sunday.
“This has nothing to do with the fighting and the situation at the front, but it proves once again that the Russians are fighting against our people and against life in Ukraine,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky on the Telegram messenger.
“And they are fighting meanly, without relieving pressure. This is not what those who really want peace to be restored and are preparing for negotiations do.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the attack on the power plant was “done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe”.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 143 drones overnight. The Ukrainian military said it had shot down 95 of them while 46 did not reach their targets, probably thanks to the use of electromagnetic countermeasures that disrupt drone attacks.
At least one person was injured in the overnight attacks, which also damaged houses in the Kyiv region, said Ukrainian officials. The temperature in Mykolaiv was expected to fall to - 7°C on Sunday night.
Zelensky again urged Western allies to give Ukraine more air defences, with Russia now holding 20% of Ukrainian territory and slowly advancing in the east as Moscow’s full-scale invasion nears its third anniversary.
European countries are planning a meeting on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine.
Russian troops intensify attacks on Ukrainian forces in east
Russian troops had sharply stepped up their attacks in eastern Ukraine, said Kyiv’s military on Sunday, as a Nato official predicted Moscow would increase the pace and intensity of its assaults with talks to end the war approaching.
The main attacks were concentrated near the imperilled logistics hub of Pokrovsk, said Kyiv’s military, which reported 261 combat engagements with Russia over a 24-hour period on Saturday, easily the largest number recorded this year and more than double the roughly 100 per day it reported in previous days.
“Today was the hardest day of 2025 at the front,” wrote the Ukrainian DeepState military blog late on Saturday.
Russian forces have seized a swathe of territory to the south of Pokrovsk and are now pushing upwards to its southwest, threatening a main supply route into the outpost, the capture of which could open up more lines of attack for Russia.
Shocked Europeans play catch-up after Trump moves on Ukraine
They should not have been surprised. Yet European officials have been left shocked and flat-footed by the Trump administration’s moves on Ukraine, Russia and European defence in recent days.
At a major security conference in Munich at the weekend, there was a sense of dismay and disbelief — and a whiff of panic — among European delegates even as some tried to put a brave face on a dizzying few days of declarations and diplomacy.
Chief among their fears: that they can no longer be sure of US military protection and that Trump will do a Ukraine peace deal with Putin that undermines Kyiv and broader European security.
That concern was stoked by US Vice-President JD Vance’s conference speech, which mentioned Ukraine and European defence only in passing and focused on accusing Europe of stifling free speech and failing to manage migration.
The Europeans’ fears of being sidelined were heightened by Trump’s Ukraine envoy, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who declared on Saturday they would not be at the table for peace talks — although their views would be taken into account.
Later in the day, it emerged that US and Russian officials would meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days to start talks aimed at ending the war.
Meeting in Munich, a city synonymous with the 1938 pact to let Nazi Germany annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, some European leaders at the security conference said openly they feared appeasement was once again on the agenda.
“As I stand here in Munich tonight, I cannot help but ask: Have we been here before?” said European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Saturday evening.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk chimed in remotely on Sunday via X: “As a historian and politician the only thing I can say today is: MUNICH. NEVER AGAIN.”
Europeans are reeling from a blizzard of Trump administration moves in recent days, even as Washington has said it remains committed to the Nato transatlantic alliance that has been the bedrock of European security for 75 years.
On Wednesday, new US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared at Nato headquarters that a peace deal would not include Nato membership and it was unrealistic for Ukraine to return to its borders pre-2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.
Hegseth also said “stark strategic realities” prevented the US “from being primarily focused on the security of Europe”.
Many European officials expressed puzzlement as they tried to discern whether the Trump administration had a detailed plan for Ukraine and who the key players were.
Some drew hope from discussions with US officials behind the scenes, which they said were more sober and constructive than the blunt public remarks from Vance, Hegseth and others.
But others said they feared for the transatlantic alliance as a whole, arguing the Trump administration was not just pursuing different policies from Europe but was actively opposed to the European political mainstream.
On Friday, Vance met leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is shunned by mainstream parties, ahead of a national election on 23 February.
“It is clear now that the US wants to break the post-World War Two order that they created. And that includes destroying the EU. We will have to be prepared for that and change our attitude completely,” said one European diplomat.
Europe needs special Ukraine envoy, says Finland after US rebuff
Europe needed a special envoy for Ukraine to ensure it got a meaningful role in any peace process, said two European leaders on Sunday after the continent was ruled out as a partner in talks by Trump’s administration.
“If I may just throw out one idea loosely, if there is a negotiating table, I think we need to do something similar that was done in Kosovo,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb at the annual Munich Security Conference, referring to diplomacy that helped end Serbia’s 1998-99 military crackdown on its restive southern province and bring about Kosovan statehood.
“Europe needs to have a special envoy like Martti Ahtisaari [on Kosovo], and then a deputy envoy who is on the level of ... [US special envoy for Ukraine Keith] Kellogg … and in that sense, we get some kind of a skin in the game.”
“What we lacked on Ukraine in recent years was one personality highly respected by everyone, taken into account in Moscow, taken into account in Kyiv, and having support in Washington and European capitals and other leaders, including the Global South, that could have the authority to manage the peace talks,” said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.
“We need the high visibility of someone strong, who can manage the process.” DM