BRUSSELS: European Union leaders, stunned by the United States' drastic turn on support for Ukraine, met in Brussels on Thursday and discussed how to significantly improve Europe's defence capacity, including nuclear deterrence, and further support for Kiev.
"This is a watershed moment for Europe," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the meeting.
"Europe faces a clear and present danger, and therefore Europe has to be able to protect itself, to defend itself, as we have to put Ukraine in a position to protect itself and to push for a lasting and just peace," she added.
EU countries and Ukraine are alarmed by the prospect of the US and Russia seeking a peace settlement bilaterally which could grant Moscow territorial concessions, exclude Ukraine from Nato and close the door on US participation in future peacekeeping operations.
EU countries worry that a peace deal favouring Russia could allow Moscow to attack Ukraine again and possibly other European countries.
All Europeans understand what it means if Russia could rearm and in a few years strike against other countries, warned Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina, whose country is a former Soviet republic and shares a land border with Russia.
Ahead of the EU summit, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he is considering placing allied European countries under the protection of French nuclear weapons.
Macron was following up on a suggestion by likely new German chancellor Friedrich Merz to hold talks with western European nuclear powers over an umbrella approach.
Germany's complicated post-war history means that it did not develop its own nuclear weapons.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday expressed caution regarding Macron's proposal, as he arrived at an EU summit. When asked by a journalist, Scholz referred to Nato's system of nuclear deterrence, which is based on stationing US nuclear weapons in some European countries including in Germany.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in comments to relatives of soldiers killed in the war that Russia will seek a peace deal in Ukraine that safeguards its own long-term security and will not retreat from the gains it has made in the conflict,
Putin also took an indirect swipe at President Macron, saying Western leaders should not underestimate the Russian people and should keep in mind the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Russia in 1812 ended in disaster.
"We must choose for ourselves a peace option that will suit us and that will ensure peace for our country in the long term," Putin told a group of Russian women who have lost loved ones during the three-year war in Ukraine.
Asked by the mother of one fallen soldier if Russia would retreat, Putin said he did not intend to do that. Russia currently controls just under a fifth of Ukraine - or about 113,000 square km.
At times during the meeting some women wiped away tears.
US President Donald Trump has upended Western policy on the Ukraine war, opening up bilateral talks with Moscow and pausing military aid to Kyiv after clashing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House last week. - Agencies
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