Ukraine-Russia: Macron says peace just ‘weeks away’ as US sides with Putin in UN vote

The United States joined Russia, North Korea and Belarus at the UN in refusing to blame Vladimir Putin for illegally invading Ukraine.

Washington, alongside the three dictatorships, rejected a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Russian forces to withdraw from the war-torn country.

The motion, which was drafted by Ukraine and other European countries, passed with 93 votes in favour on Monday. Eighteen countries voted against it and 64 countries, including China, abstained.

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China’s president Xi Jinping affirmed his “no limits” partnership in a phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday, China’s state media reported.

The leaders held the talks as US president Donald Trump has pushed for a quick deal to end the Ukraine war, raising the prospect that Washington could draw a wedge between Mr Xi and Mr Putin to focus on competing with the world’s second-largest economy.

The call appeared aimed at dispelling any such prospects – the two leaders underscored the durability and the “long-term” nature of their alliance, with its own internal dynamics that would not be impacted by any “third party”.

“China-Russia relations have strong internal driving force and unique strategic value, and are not aimed at, nor are they influenced by, any third party,” Mr Xi said, according to the official readout.

“The development strategies and foreign policies of China and Russia are long-term,” said Mr Xi, adding that the two countries “are good neighbours that cannot be moved apart”.

Donald Trump has suggested it will be Europe that “make[s] sure nothing happens” in Ukraine when it comes to security, as he confirmed Vladimir Putin would be happy to see peacekeeping forces on the ground as part of a deal to end the war.

Speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump said: “Europe is going to make sure nothing happens.”

Earlier on, Mr Trump had said Mr Putin “will accept” peacekeepers, after Sir Keir Starmer previously said he would be willing to put British troops on the ground as part of security guarantees that could end the war.

Trump said of the Russian president’s reaction to peacekeepers in Ukraine: “Yeah, he will accept it.

“I have asked him that question. Look, if we do this deal, he’s not looking for world war.”

Britain’s UN ambassador Barbara Woodward warned the UN Security Council that Moscow will act with impunity if Russia is allowed to win.

Her statement comes after the UN voted in favour of a Ukrainian resolution calling out Russian aggression while the US abstained on its competing resolution after European nations, led by France, amended it to make clear Russia was the aggressor.

A Security Council vote on the original US draft saw Britain, France, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia abstain.

“If Russia is allowed to win, we will live in a world where might is right, where borders can be redrawn by force, where aggressors think they can act with impunity,” Ms Woodward said.

Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba has cautioned his counterparts from the Group of Seven nations against sending the wrong message to Russia during peace negotiations.

“We need to be careful that the wrong lesson may not be drawn that the status quo can be changed by force,” Mr Ishiba told an online G-7 summit on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He said the G-7 members must be unified to realise a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, adding that Tokyo will continue its support to Kyiv and sanctions against Moscow, The Asahi Shimbun reported.

Opening his press conference alongside France’s Emmanuel Macron, US president Donald Trump described the war in Ukraine as a “horrible, bloody mess” and insisted that discussions with Russia for peace were moving “pretty quickly”.

Mr Macron told reporters that it was “good to have discussion” between the US and Russia, but warned that “peace must not be a surrender of Ukraine” and that there cannot be a “ceasefire without guarantees” of security for Kyiv.

Mr Macron also suggested that other European nations could assist in that process going forward, and need to contribute more to maintaining the defence and security of the continent – warning that Ukrainian sovereignty is an “existential issue” for stability in Europe.

And after a week in which Mr Trump and his domestic allies launched a series of vitriolic tirades against Ukraine’s leadership, the French president said: “We admire greatly the courage of the Ukrainian people”, adding: “I think that no one in this room wants to live in a world where it’s the law of the strongest.”

For his part, Mr Trump once again claimed the war “would never have happened if I was president” and, in a nod to his attempts to secure a rare minerals deal with Ukraine, said: “I believe taxpayers in the United States also deserve to recoup the colossal amounts of money that we’ve sent.”

He added: “Our focus is on achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible, and ultimately permanent peace. My meeting with President Macron was a very important step forward.”

A 44-year-old woman was injured in a Russian airstrike in the Kyiv region, Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of the region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital.

“She received wounds to her leg, she has been hospitalised,” Ms Kalashnyk on Telegram.

All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts after the country’s air force warned of a Russian missile attack that also forced Nato-member neighbouring Poland to scramble aircraft to ensure air safety.

The full scale of the attack was not immediately clear. There was no comment from Russia.