Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged allies to swiftly elevate talks on security guarantees for Ukraine to the level of leaders, as European Union defence ministers pledged to train Kyiv's troops on Ukrainian soil in the event of a truce, Reuters reports.
Kyiv is engaged in a diplomatic push to try and bring to an end Russia's war, now in its fourth year, and to secure critical commitments from its partners to fend off any future invasion.
The Ukrainian president said he expected to continue talks with European leaders next week on "NATO-like" commitments to protect Ukraine, adding that U.S. President Donald Trump should also be involved.
"We need the architecture to be clear to everyone," he said, adding that he wanted to tell Trump "how we see it".
Zelenskiy spoke shortly before his chief of staff was due to discuss with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff at a meeting in New York the need to increase pressure on Moscow.
Ukrainian officials say Russia, which has continued attacking cities with missiles and drones and is pressing a battlefield offensive, has no interest in seeking peace.
Diplomatic efforts to end Russia's full-scale invasion have so far yielded little, even after Trump met separately with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders earlier this month.
Zelenskiy also raised Trump's self-imposed deadline for deciding on new measures against Russia if President Vladimir Putin fails to commit to a one-on-one meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
"Two weeks will be on Monday. And we will remind everybody," he said.
Russia has said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Putin and Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy said he wanted allies to ratify any security guarantees through their parliaments, invoking a 1994 deal in which Kyiv gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances that proved insufficient to deter Russia.
"We want legally binding security guarantees. We don't want (another) Budapest Memorandum."
Germany and France on Friday outlined plans to cooperate more deeply on security, including a missile early warning system, following a meeting between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron.
