Only Zelenskyy can negotiate for Ukraine, Macron says, as Trump pushes for peace talks at security summit – Europe live

We are also expecting an update from the Munich police this morning, after the number of people injured in yesterday’s suspected car attack has gone up to 30. But, but, but there was also an important correction from the authorities that, despite what they said earlier, the suspect was in Germany legally. Shortly after the suspected attack, Bavaria’s interior minister Joachim Herrmann suggested that the suspect’s asylum application was rejected, and that he was known to the police in connection with shoplifting and drug offences.

But he corrected the record on Thursday night, saying that the 24-year-old was, in fact, legally after he was given a residence permit in late 2021, even after his original asylum application was rejected. Herrmann also said that his involvement with drug and shoplifting offences was in relation to his work as a security guard in a store. Or, as confirmed by the Munich police, he was simply listed as a witness, not as a suspect.

German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due to visit the scene this morning, and a police briefing is expected around 11am CET (10am GMT). The suspect is also expected to be brought in front of a judge today, so we may hear more there. It’s going to be a busy, and potentially turbulent, day. Buckle up. At the Munich Security Conference, we are going to hear from:. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

US vice-president JD Vance. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Multiple defence and foreign ministers of EU countries. Separately, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth is in Poland, which he called “a model” for how Nato should invest in its defence capabilities, and he will speak there twice during the day. I will bring you all the key lines here. In 1938, the UK, the French Republic, fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany signed an agreement that was meant to appease Adolf Hitler’s growing appetite for territorial expansion by allowing for the annexation of parts of Czechoslovakia (which was not represented). Guess how that worked out.

It was formally called “the Munich agreement,” although if you ask the Czechs and the Slovaks, they have a different name for it: “The Munich betrayal.”. The agreement was signed in the Führerbau building in Munich, approximately 950 metres from where today’s Security Conference takes place. Just saying. Given that historical background, it is only understandable that confronted with the prospect of Trump’s peace talks on Ukraine with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, this time happening behind their backs and with no clear guarantees about the role and the importance of Ukraine’s position in all of this, many European leaders feel deeply uneasy.

EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, was clear with how she saw Trump’s plan to decide the future of Ukraine in talks with Russia, potentially without the involvement of Europeans. “Why are we giving them [Russia] everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?” she said. “It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”. UK defence secretary John Healey, who played a central role in talks this week leading Europe’s push back against the new American policy, also repeatedly said: “No negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine.”.

Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski put it even more bluntly: “I’m going to Munich, but we’re not doing another Munich.”. Among other speeches, we will hear from US vice-president JD Vance. We know from his Paris appearance earlier this week that he does not mince words when he is unhappy about something. German opposition leader Friedrich Merz claimed last night that he had some early briefing on what is going to be in Vance’s speech, and said he expected “a brutally hard message” and a “confrontational speech”.