Trump will consider restoring aid if talks with Ukraine progress, White House national security adviser says – Europe live

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen backed the Greenlandic prime minister in saying that Greenland was not for sale and it was up for its people to determine its future.

She said that Denmark would want to “hold on to our commonwealth,” but added that it would need to evolve to be “made better, more modern, built on equality and respect.”

In comments to Danish broadcaster TV2, she added that “Greenland wants nothing more than to be Greenland.”

She also said she had not spoken with Trump since their last contact in early January, after which he convened emergency talks with political leaders amid concerns about Greenland.

Separately, Greenland’s finance minister Erik Jensen told broadcaster DR that the US president’s comments were “disrespectful.”

Overnight, Trump said the US “needed Greenland for national security and even international security,” adding: “I think we’re going to get it – one way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Hungarian foreign and trade minister Péter Szijjártó said he was hopeful about challenging US sanctions imposed by the previous Joe Biden administration, claiming they were “created clearly with the intention of political revenge, in order to harm Hungary and later harm future Hungary-US relations”.

Speaking after his meeting with US state secretary Marco Rubio, Szijjártó highlighted the realignment in views between the two countries under Donald Trump, with the two sides agreeing on sanctions and on Ukraine.

“There are measures involving sanctions that affect Hungary’s energy security in the areas of natural gas acquisition and also nuclear energy, but there is also the sanction against Minister [of the prime minister’s Cabinet Office Antal] Rogán,” he said, quoted by a publication associated with the Hungarian government.

“We have launched the necessary legal procedures concerning all three issues and the secretary of state assured us of absolute openness regarding leaving behind us these revenge measures as soon as possible,” he was quoted as saying.

Szijjártó said he relayed Hungary’s support for Trump’s proposed peace talks on Ukraine.

We were also in agreement that repeated statements about having to continue the war as long as possible was not a strategy and was also a dangerous position because the longer the war continues in our neighbourhood, the greater the danger of escalation.

The minister also claimed, without offering further evidence, that “in Europe, especially in its western part, there was some scheming under way against Donald Trump and his peace plan.”

I earlier brought you the FT’s report claiming that the US has cut off intelligence-sharing with Kyiv in a move that could seriously hamper the Ukrainian military’s ability to target Russian forces.

But Bloomberg (£) and Ukraine’s national broadcaster Suspilne are reporting that the flow of intelligence information continues.

I will keep an eye on that to see if there are any official confirmations either way.

President Donald Trump will consider restoring aid to Ukraine if peace talks are arranged and confidence-building measures are taken, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

“I think if we can nail down these negotiations and move towards these negotiations, and in fact, put some confidence-building measures on the table, then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause,” Waltz said in an interview with Fox News.

As Starmer speaks in the Commons, we are getting reports from Russia that a British man captured fighting on Ukraine’s side during its offensive in Russia’s Kursk region has been sentenced to 19 years behind bars.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement on its website that James Scott Rhys Anderson was found guilty of a “terrorist act” and acting as a mercenary, after he was captured while fighting in the Kursk region in November.

The statement, released only in Russian, added that the Briton would spend “with the first five years to be served in prison and the rest in a maximum security penal colony.”

Speaking in the House of Commons in the last few minutes, UK prime minister Keir Starmer insisted on a need to secure “a lasting peace” in Ukraine, saying that:

The whole point of ensuring that there’s a lasting peace – and that any deal, if there’s a deal, is defended – is to avoid conflict, to ensure that we do have peace.

The way to ensure we have peace is to ensure there are guarantees for any deal that is in place, because the surest risk that there will be conflict is if Putin thinks that he can breach any deal that may be arrived at.

Starmer was also indirectly asked about reports on US limiting its intelligence sharing on Ukraine, and he didn’t answer it directly, but said instead that:

I have always been clear that we need to ensure that the US, the UK, Europe and Ukraine, are working together, but we must not choose between the US and Europe.

We never have historically, and we’re not going to do so now.

But Starmer also subtly hit back at US vice-president JD Vance for his comments on European troops from yesterday, opening the Q&A session in parliament by paying tribute to UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan, stressing “these men fought and died for their country, … fighting for Britain alongside our allies.”

In Iraq and Afghanistan 643 individuals died, and many more were injured, he says.

He later gets pointedly asked about Vance’s comments, and says:

We do remember the role that we’ve played historically with our allies, and we particularly remember those that made the ultimate sacrifice in that duty for their country and for our allies and that’s why it’s so important that we make that point today.

For more details on the PMQ session in the House of Commons, you can follow our UK live blog here:

No set plans for Macron’s trip to Washington, Elysée says, despite government spokesperson comments

Angelique Chrisafis

in Paris

An Elysée official later clarified there were no set plans for a trip to Washington by Emmanuel Macron at this point.

Although Sophie Primas, the government spokesperson, had suggested a trip might happen soon with the UK’s Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, it is Macron’s presidential office at the Élysée Palace that handles his international agenda and brief for foreign policy.

The US has cut off intelligence-sharing with Kyiv in a move that could seriously hamper the Ukrainian military’s ability to target Russian forces, the Financial Times reported (£) on Wednesday, citing officials familiar with the matter.

The paper noted that the decision came after the US suspended military aid deliveries to Ukraine earlier this week.

Speaking after the weekly French cabinet meeting, the French government’s spokesperson Sophie Primas told journalists said she would not pre-empt president Macron’s address to the nation tonight, but added that

It is being considered that president Macron could possibly go back to Washington with president Zelenskyy and with his English counterpart.

She was later asked a follow-up question on the expected timing of the visit and who came up with the idea, and she said she didn’t have the information, but expected this to happen “in the near future.”

She said she believed the meeting was a French initiative.

French president Emmanuel Macron is considering making another visit to the US to meet US president Donald Trump together with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and British prime minister Keir Starmer, a French government spokesperson said in comments reported by Reuters.

France and the UK have been leading Europe’s response to the diplomatic crisis between the US and Ukraine after talks between Trump and Zelenskyy broke down last Friday in acrimony.