Zelenskyy says he would join Trump-Putin summit in Hungary if invited – Europe live

We are closing this live blog soon, but you can find the latest on Europe here. For updates on Ukraine, follow here.

Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:

• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Monday he would be ready to join Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, at their summit in Hungary if he is invited. Trump and Putin are expected to meet in the Hungarian capital, possibly in a matter of weeks, as the US leader continues to try to broker a peace deal to end the three-and-a-half-year war. Zelenskyy told reporters in remarks released on Monday: “If I am invited to Budapest – if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me – then in one format or another, we will agree.”

• EU countries on Monday agreed to phase out remaining gas imports from Russia by January 2028, breaking a dependency the bloc has struggled to end despite Moscow’s war on Ukraine. Energy ministers meeting in Luxembourg approved a plan by the European Commission to phase out both pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Russia, subject to approval by the bloc’s parliament. The ministers approved the plans, which would phase out new Russian gas import contracts from January 2026, existing short-term contracts from June 2026, and long-term contracts in January 2028, at a meeting in Luxembourg. The law is not yet final. EU countries must negotiate the final rules with the European parliament, which is still debating its position.

• Donald Trump on Sunday suggested the best way to end the war in Ukraine would be to “cut up” the Donbas region, leaving most of it to Russia. The US president told reporters: “Let it be cut the way it is,” adding: “They can negotiate something later on down the line.” The comments came after a tense White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which Trump reportedly put pressure on the Ukrainian president to give up swaths of territory.

• EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it was wrong to pressure Ukraine to secure an end to Russia’s war, after reports US president Donald Trump pushed Kyiv to give up land. Kallas said: “What we must not forget is that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim here, so putting the pressure on Ukraine as the victim is not the right approach.” Earlier on Monday, Kallas said that it was “not nice” that Putin might travel to EU member Hungary for talks on the war in Ukraine.

• Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with Donald Trump on Friday was “positive” — even though he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine. Zelenskyy said Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, which would have been a major boost for Kyiv, after his phone call with Vladimir Putin hours earlier.

• Ukraine is preparing a contract to buy 25 Patriot air defence systems. In comments to media at a meeting on Sunday and cleared for use on Monday, Zelenskyy said the systems would be supplied every year for a number of years, and that Ukraine would seek for some European nations to give Kyiv priority in the queue for the systems. Patriots are seen by Kyiv as the most effective systems to stop Russian ballistic missiles, which travel several times faster than the speed of sound.

• Zelenskyy said he had spoken to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Monday about applying pressure on Russia, and that he had agreed to meet him in the near future. “Pressuring the one who started the war is the key to a denouement,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “Emmanuel and I discussed all the current diplomatic aspects and our recent contacts with partners.”

• The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia is prepared to expand cooperation with Iran in all areas. Asked by reporters how Russia saw the development of events around Iran’s nuclear programme and if Moscow would deepen ties with Tehran, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Russia is definitely ready to expand cooperation with Iran in all areas. Iran is our partner, and our relations are developing very dynamically.”

• The European Union is looking to increase the ability of its member states to carry out inspections on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of ageing oil tankers. “We are discussing with the member states how to better coordinate our actions regarding the shadow fleet,” EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas said at a meeting with foreign ministers. “We should think about it more – to be more creative.”

• Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto will visit Washington on Tuesday. Szijjarto did not say whom he would meet in Washington after arriving on Tuesday or what the agenda of the US visit was.

• An investigation into the Lisbon funicular crash will publish its first report on Monday into the causes of the derailment, which killed 16 people in early September.

• France’s Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin admitted Monday to security flaws in protecting the Louvre that had led to robbers a day earlier stealing imperial jewels in broad daylight from the famed Paris museum. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of Paris, get people up it in several minutes to grab priceless jewels and give France a terrible image,” he told France Inter radio. The Louvre remained closed on Monday for a second day running.

• The Louvre did not tap a private Israeli intel firm despite the CEO’s earlier claims that they had. “The Louvre exceptionally asked us to uncover the identity of people involved in the theft and to retrieve the stolen artefacts,” CGI Group CEO Zvika Naveh told AFP on Monday. However, shortly after, the management of the Louvre museum denied having contacted a private Israeli intel firm to investigate the weekend’s heist. A press representative told the Guardian in an email: “The Musée du Louvre denies having contacted an Israeli company in connection with the investigation.”

• Greece slammed as ‘provocative’ the British Museum first ever fundraiser that had guests dining in the gallery hosting the Parthenon marbles. “The safety, integrity, and ethics of the monuments should be the primary concern of the British Museum, which once again demonstrates provocative indifference,” Greece culture minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.

• Pope Leo met with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy for the first time on Monday, days after the Vatican’s child protection commission accused senior Church leaders of being too slow to help victims. Leo held a meeting with Ending Clergy Abuse, an international coalition of survivors, the group said. The encounter, which included six abuse victims, lasted about an hour and was “a significant moment of dialogue,” they said. The 1.4-billion-member Church has been shaken for decades by scandals across the world involving abuse and cover-up, damaging its credibility and costing it hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday it was wrong to pressure Ukraine to secure an end to Russia’s war, after reports US president Donald Trump pushed Kyiv to give up land.

Kallas, after a meeting of EU foreign ministers, said:

What we must not forget is that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim here, so putting the pressure on Ukraine as the victim is not the right approach.

She added:

We are working also trying to convince our allies all across the world, nothing can come out of these meetings if Ukraine or Europe is not part of it.

Who doesn’t want to end this war is Russia. We should not be distracted … we have to make also Russia want peace.

Earlier today, Kallas said that it was “not nice” that Putin might travel to EU member Hungary for talks on the war in Ukraine.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a press briefing broadcast on his Facebook page that he will visit Washington on Tuesday.

US president Donald Trump said on Thursday he would soon meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Budapest for talks on the war in Ukraine.

In his comments on Monday, Szijjarto did not say whom he would meet in Washington after arriving on Tuesday or what the agenda of the U.S. visit was.

A private Israeli intel firm said Monday that France’s Louvre museum has asked for its help locate artefacts stolen the previous day in an audacious act of daylight robbery.

“The Louvre exceptionally asked us to uncover the identity of people involved in the theft and to retrieve the stolen artefacts,” CGI Group CEO Zvika Naveh told AFP.

However, the management of the Louvre museum denied on Monday having contacted a private Israeli intel firm to investigate the weekend’s heist.

A press representative told the Guardian in an email: “The Musée du Louvre denies having contacted an Israeli company in connection with the investigation.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for the delivery of an additional 25 US Patriot anti-missile batteries amid the rapidly escalating air war with Russia, as it became clear that Donald Trump had once again tacked sharply towards Moscow.

The Ukrainian president added that he would be ready to join Vladimir Putin and Trump at their summit in Hungary if he was invited.

Reports over the weekend said Trump had privately urged Zelenskyy to accept Russia’s terms for ending the war in Ukraine during a fractious White House meeting on Friday, warning that Putin had said he would “destroy” Ukraine if it did not agree.

According to the Financial Times, the meeting descended at times into a “shouting match”, with Trump “cursing all the time”.

Pope Leo met with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy for the first time on Monday, participants said, days after the Vatican’s child protection commission accused senior Church leaders of being too slow to help victims.

Leo held a meeting with Ending Clergy Abuse, an international coalition of survivors, the group said. The encounter, which included six abuse victims, lasted about an hour and was “a significant moment of dialogue,” they said.

The 1.4-billion-member Church has been shaken for decades by scandals across the world involving abuse and cover-up, damaging its credibility and costing it hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

An unusually critical report from the Vatican’s own child protection commission, issued on Thursday, faulted senior bishops for not providing information to victims about how their reports of abuse were being handled, or whether negligent bishops had been sanctioned.

Gemma Hickey, a Canadian survivor who took part in Monday’s meeting, said Leo met with the victims in his office at the Vatican’s apostolic palace, took pictures with them, and listened carefully.

“Pope Leo is very warm, he listened,” she said. “We told him that we come as bridge-builders, ready to walk together toward truth, justice and healing.”

“I left the meeting with hope,” said Janet Aguti, a Ugandan survivor who was also at the meeting. “It is a big step for us.”

Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, is known to have met with survivors earlier in his career, when he was a missionary and bishop in Peru.

Francis, who died in April, made addressing abuse by clergy a priority of his 12-year papacy, with mixed results. The late pope met with abuse victims many times, often during his foreign trips.

Greece slammed as ‘provocative’ the British Museum first ever fundraiser that had guests dining in the gallery hosting the Parthenon marbles., AFP reported on Monday.

Saturday’s star-studded ball drew the likes of Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell, Janet Jackson and Kristin Scott Thomas, in addition to London Mayor Sadiq Khan and former prime minister Rishi Sunak.

“The safety, integrity, and ethics of the monuments should be the primary concern of the British Museum, which once again demonstrates provocative indifference,” Greece culture minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.

Athens has for decades demanded the return of the priceless sculptures, saying they were looted in the early 19th century by Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Under chair George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor of the exchequer, the British Museum has been engaged in long talks with Greek officials on a formula that would allow the Marbles to be displayed in Athens.

In December, Osborne said the London institution was exploring an “arrangement where at some point some of the sculptures” could be sent to Athens in return for Greece lending the museum “some of its treasures”.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his reportedly tense meeting with Donald Trump on Friday was “positive” — even though he did not secure the Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said Trump reneged on the possibility of sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, which would have been a major boost for Kyiv, following his phone call with Vladimir Putin hours earlier.

“In my opinion, he does not want an escalation with the Russians until he meets with them,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday. His comments were embargoed until this morning.

Ukraine is hoping to purchase 25 Patriot air defense systems from American firms using frozen Russian assets and assistance from partners, but Zelenskyy said procuring all of these would require time because of long production queues. He said he spoke to Trump about help procuring these quicker, potentially from European partners.

According to Zelenskyy, Trump said during their meeting that Putin’s maximalist demand — that Ukraine cede the entirety of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — was unchanged.

Zelenskyy was diplomatic about his meeting with Trump despite reports that he faced pressure to accept Putin’s demands — a tactic he has kept up since the disastrous Oval Office spat on 28 February when the Ukrainian president was scolded on live television for not being grateful for continued American support.

Zelenskyy claimed that because Trump ultimately supported a freeze along the current front line his overall message “is positive” for Ukraine.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will hold a phone call soon, to prepare the upcoming Putin-Trump summit, RIA has reported.

The state news agency quoted Lavrov’s deputy, Sergei Ryabkov, but he did not specify the timeframe of the call. Rubio and Lavrov will discuss the bilateral agenda of Russia-US relations, including economic issues, he said.

Reuters has more details on the EU energy ministers backing a proposal to phase out Russian oil and gas imports to the bloc by January 2028 (see earlier post).

The ministers approved the plans, which would phase out new Russian gas import contracts from January 2026, existing short-term contracts from June 2026, and long-term contracts in January 2028, at a meeting in Luxembourg.

The law is not yet final. EU countries must negotiate the final rules with the European parliament, which is still debating its position.

Russia currently accounts for 12% of EU gas imports, down from 45% before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with Hungary, France and Belgium among the countries still receiving Russian gas.

The European Commission designed the proposals to be able to pass despite previous opposition from Hungary and Slovakia, the two countries that still also import Russian oil.

It needed backing from a “qualified majority” of EU member states – meaning at least 55% – so one or two nations alone could not block it.