UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his country's European allies today for insisting that Kiev be involved in negotiations on ending its war with Russia.

“The end of the war must be fair and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine,” he said.

US President Donald Trump has announced he will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska for discussions on how to end the war this Friday. Though the US had said it was open to a trilateral summit including Mr Zelensky as well, it has now agreed to bilateral talks at Russia’s request.

On Saturday, a joint statement by the leaders of the European Union, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Poland insisted that “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”

Mr Trump has suggested that a peace deal will involve “some swapping of territories,” but Mr Zelensky said: “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls about a fifth of its territory. Moscow has formally annexed five Ukrainian regions, but three remain active battlegrounds. The Russian army is continuing a slow advance along the 600-mile front line.

Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitri Medvedev, a former president, said with characteristic drama: “As the European imbeciles are trying to hinder US attempts aimed at resolving the Ukrainian conflict, the agonising Bandera regime [a reference to Ukraine’s rehabilitation of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera] is in a panic recruiting the vilest scum of humanity to fight at the battlefront.”