Ukrainians must have the freedom to decide their own future, European Union member states said on Tuesday, seeking to weigh in ahead of talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plan to speak with Trump on Wednesday, before the summit in Alaska, amid fears that Washington, hitherto Ukraine's leading arms supplier, may dictate unfavorable peace terms to Kyiv.

"Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities," the leaders of all EU countries except Hungary said in a joint statement, adding: "We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine's and Europe's vital security interests."

Will Trump favor Russia?

Kyiv and its European allies fear that Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and seal business deals with Moscow, could side with Russia.

"A Ukraine capable of defending itself effectively is an integral part of any future security guarantees," the European statement said, adding that EU nations were ready to contribute further to security guarantees.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin's principal sympathizer in Europe, mocked the statement from his EU counterparts.

"The fact that the EU was left on the sidelines is sad enough as it is. The only thing that could make things worse is if we started providing instructions from the bench," Orban said on X.

"The only sensible action for EU leaders is to initiate an EU-Russia summit, based on the example of the U.S.-Russia meeting."

Trump had been hardening his stance towards Moscow, agreeing to send more U.S. weapons to Ukraine and threatening hefty trade tariffs on buyers of Russian oil in an ultimatum that has now lapsed.

Even so, the prospect of Trump hosting Putin on U.S. soil for the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021 has revived fears among EU members that he might put narrow U.S. interests ahead of the security of European allies or broader geopolitics.

Ukraine makes small advances in Sumy

Trump has said any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both" Russia and Ukraine, prompting consternation in Kyiv and European capitals as virtually all the territory in question has previously been regarded as Ukrainian.

Kyiv's military said on Monday it had retaken two villages in the eastern region of Sumy, part of a small reversal in more than a year of slow, attritional Russian gains in the southeast.

"It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy," Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook, following a meeting on Tuesday with Zelenskyy and fellow commanders.

Russia, which launched its so called "special military operation" to Ukraine in February 2022, has mounted a new offensive this year in Sumy after Putin demanded a "buffer zone" there.

Russian forces have meanwhile been pushing westward for months along other sections of the 1,000-kilometer frontline, capturing villages almost daily, mainly in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine's authoritative Deep State mapping project shows that Russian forces control about 200 square kilometers of Sumy, and a total of about 114,000 square kilometers in Ukraine, including Crimea, controlled by Russia since 2014.