What key players want from Ukraine war talks
Getty ImagesThis could prove a defining week for the war in Ukraine, with two sets of hastily arranged talks taking place in Paris and Riyadh.
European leaders are meeting in France as they scramble for a response to Donald Trump's plan to open negotiations with Vladimir Putin for an end to the conflict.
On Tuesday Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are due to meet in the Saudi capital.
Ukraine is not attending either set of talks.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls more than a fifth of its territory, mainly in the south and east.
BBC correspondents analyse what key powers hope to gain from two days of intense diplomacy.
Monday: European leaders in Paris
The UK
By Harry Farley, Political Correspondent in London
Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to be a bridge between European leaders and Trump's White House berating them about their defence spending.
Starmer's offer to put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine is part of that role he wants to play.
The government used to say the terms of any peace deal was up to Ukraine. That has shifted with the new US administration signalling that a return to 2014 borders was "unrealistic".
Instead Sir Keir will be hoping more European nations in Paris join him in offering their forces to secure a deal – and prevent Russia invading again.
But while the prime minister is in Paris, in Westminster the debate goes on about how much the country should spend on defence.
Labour has promised to "set out a path" to increase defence spending from 2.3% of GDP now to 2.5%. Defence sources say that would be a significant rise.
But there is no date for when that would happen - and many argue it is now urgent.
Germany
By Damien McGuinness, Germany correspondent in Berlin
It is a sign of how rattled German leaders are by Trump's approach to Ukraine that just days before a national election Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also in Paris.
All mainstream parties have condemned American suggestions that a peace deal be brokered without Ukraine or the EU. Far-right and populist-left politicians welcome talks with Putin and want to stop arming Kyiv. But they will not get into power.
So, whatever the next German government looks like, Berlin's support for Ukraine will remain strong. That is because Berlin's political elite recognises that a bad deal - one that undermines Ukrainian sovereignty - would be disastrous for Germany.
But with Germany's war-torn 20th century in mind, voters here are wary of militarisation.
Over the past three years the country has successfully pivoted away from Russian energy and massively upped defence spending. But this has hit the German economy hard and the subsequent budget rows sparked the collapse of the German government.
So politicians are trying to avoid public discussions of difficult issues, like higher Nato spending targets or German peacekeeping troops in Ukraine — at least until after the election.
Poland
By Sarah Rainsford, Eastern Europe correspondent in Warsaw
Poland has been a key supporter of Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion and it is the key logistics hub for military and humanitarian aid entering the country.
It is also a loud voice arguing that Russia cannot be allowed to win the war it launched – because the whole of Europe's security is at stake. So there is consternation that the US looks like it is conceding to Moscow's key demands, even before talks begin, when Poland very clearly sees Russia as the aggressor and as dangerous.
Russia is why Poland spends big on its own military – up to almost 5% of GDP now - and agrees with the US that the rest of Europe should do the same.
On his way to the talks in Paris, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X: "If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defence now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don't prevent a wider war."
On the question of whether to send Polish troops to Ukraine – to help enforce any eventual ceasefire - government officials have been cautious, ruling it out for now.
The Nordic and Baltic countries
By Nick Beake, Europe Correspondent in Copenhagen
Denmark will be the only Nordic nation at Monday's meeting. But European diplomats say it will also be representing the interests of its Baltic neighbours to the east – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all of whom border Russia and feel particularly vulnerable to any future Putin attack.
The shockwaves generated by the second Trump term have already been reverberating around Denmark.
Trump's renewed desire to take over Greenland – an autonomous Danish dependent territory - propelled Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on a whistle-stop tour of European allies last month to shore up support.
On Monday in Paris, Frederiksen finds herself once again in a hastily-convened meeting to respond to Trump's reshaping of the transatlantic security landscape.
Frederiksen has not yet followed in Starmer's footsteps of pledging peacekeeping boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has been quoted by Danish media as saying he is not ruling it out – but that it is too early to talk about.
France
By Andrew Harding, Paris correspondent
French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday's informal meeting – not a "summit," his officials insisted – to help Europe coordinate a response both to Washington's increasingly unsympathetic posture towards the continent, and to whatever emerges from the White House's fast-paced negotiations with the Kremlin.
"The Europeans, as we speak, are not coordinated, but that may be the whole point of (this) summit in Paris, and that is the beginning of coordination… Are we ready? The answer is no. Can we get ready? The answer is yes," said Francois Heisbourg, a veteran French military expert, commenting on the need for Europe to work together to prepare a possible peacekeeping force for Ukraine.
"There is a wind of unity blowing across Europe such as has not been seen since Covid," said Jean-Noël Barrot, France's most senior diplomat.
The mood in France – a nation always wary of American geopolitical manoeuvring – is particularly edgy right now, with newspaper headlines warning of a new "Trump-Putin axis" that will sideline or "abandon" Europe over the war in Ukraine.
"We should be in a Europe-wide state of emergency," warned the former Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin at a recent news briefing, accusing an "arrogant" Trump of attempting to "rule the world without principles or respect."
Tuesday: Russia and the US in Saudi Arabia
Russia
By Liza Fokht, BBC Russian in Paris
Since the summer, Putin has stated that his main conditions for starting negotiations to end the war are the recognition of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the lifting of sanctions on Russia, and denial of Ukraine's request to join Nato.
Most European countries categorically reject these demands. The US has been very cautious in discussing what concessions Russia might have to make, though both the White House and the Pentagon have said they expect compromises from "both sides".
Moscow's priority is clearly the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he would "first and foremost like to listen" to the American proposals on ending the conflict in Ukraine.
As for Europe, Moscow sees no point in inviting it to the negotiating table.
It is no secret that for many years Putin has sought dialogue specifically with the US – a country he both blames for starting the war in Ukraine and considers the only power equal to Russia.
Moscow may take note of Starmer's statements about being ready to send peacekeepers to the Ukraine – for the first time in a week, the discussion is about potential Russian, rather than Ukrainian, concessions.
But whether Russia is ready for any compromises remains an open question.
The US
By Bernd Debusmann Jr reporting from Mar-a-Lago, Florida
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff will be the public face of the US team negotiating in Riyadh - but perhaps the main voice at the table is more than 7,400 miles (11,900km) away, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Despite Trump's public engagements in recent days, it is clear that the negotiations with Russia over the fate of Ukraine have been his focus behind the scenes.
On Sunday, Trump told reporters he had been kept abreast of the latest developments and the talks are "moving along".
His short-term goal is to stop the fighting in Ukraine. Longer term, he appears to want less American involvement, given that the US has sent tens of billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Kyiv.
Trump has also pushed for access to rare minerals in Ukraine in return for aid, or even as compensation for the support the US has already provided.
But he has not yet said what a post-war Ukraine would look like, setting off alarm bells in Europe.
He also notably said that he expects Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to be a part of the "conversation", but not the talks in Riyadh. Rubio has said the talks in Saudi Arabia are only the start of a longer process that will "obviously" include Europe and Ukraine.
Those remarks are likely to provide little comfort for US allies who have been listening to Trump's remarks over the last several days.
In response to a BBC question on Wednesday, Trump said he believes he is inclined to agree with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's assessment that a return to pre-2014 borders is unrealistic for Ukraine, although he expects Ukraine might get "some" of that land back.
So far, it appears that solution is not one that is palatable for Zelensky and the rest of Ukraine's leadership.
Not at the talks: Ukraine
By Mariana Matveichuk, BBC Ukraine in Kyiv
The Ukrainian people feel their future is as uncertain as it was back in February 2022.
Ukrainians want peace - so as not to wake up to the sounds of sirens and not lose loved ones on the battlefield and in frontline cities.
Russia occupies almost 25% of Ukraine's territory. Ukraine's defence has cost tens of thousands of lives of its citizens.
The country has in the past insisted that any peace deal include the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. That includes not only areas Russia has seized in its full-scale offensive, but also the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russia has backed separatists in fighting, also in 2014.
Ukrainians are scared of a peace agreement like the one in 2014 or 2015 - heavy fighting was stopped, but crossfire on the border continued to bring losses.
With no security guarantees, it would also mean a possibility of a new wave of war in a decade or so.
"Ukraine regards any talks about Ukraine without Ukraine as such that have no result, and we cannot recognise... agreements about us without us," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said about the US-Russia meeting.
Whatever form any peace talks take, Ukrainians want agency over their own future.
Many see previous peace arrangements with Russia as having simply paved the way for its full-scale invasion. So the Ukrainian fear is that any deal agreed over its head could lead to a third round of war.