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The US and Europe are battling in the UN and G7 over whether to blame Russia for its war against Ukraine, as President Donald Trump’s rapid shift on the conflict threatens to tear apart western unity.
The Trump administration and the EU have proposed rival UN resolutions for a general assembly vote on Monday, while G7 diplomats spent the weekend haggling over whether a joint statement due to be released by the group of rich nations would refer to Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine or not.
Officials said the stand-off could reach the UN Security Council, with the US possibly siding with Russia and China against a western European-backed show of support for Kyiv.
“If [we] look at the messages that come from the United States, then it is clear that the Russian narrative is, there, very strongly represented,” the EU’s chief diplomat Kaja Kallas told reporters on Monday when asked if she believed the Trump administration was acting in Russia’s interests.
Trump’s push for a rapid end to the war, his opening of bilateral peace talks with Russia and his escalating war of words with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have torn up three years of united western condemnations of Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 and the brutal war that followed.
In a move to commemorate the war’s third anniversary, Ukraine and the EU have co-authored a UN resolution that condemns Russia’s invasion, which is set for a vote by the body’s 193 members on Monday afternoon.
The US has called for that resolution to be withdrawn, according to two officials briefed on the discussions. Washington has instead proposed its own text, which equates Ukraine’s actions with Russia’s and mourns “the tragic loss of life across the Russian Federation-Ukraine conflict”, according to one of the people.
“This [US] wording is obviously unacceptable to us,” the person said. “It’s all linked together and part of the wider shift in position by the US.”
Potential votes on both the European and US resolutions will follow the planned release of a G7 statement as part of a virtual meeting between the group’s leaders earlier on Monday afternoon.
The UN Security Council is also set to vote on the US resolution later on Monday afternoon, two officials said.
Last week, the US refused to agree to a G7 statement that referred to “Russian aggression” against Ukraine. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth echoed that position this weekend.
“Fair to say it’s a very complicated situation,” he told Fox News Sunday when asked if it was “fair” to say that Russian invaded Ukraine.
The diplomatic efforts to avoid further public rifts between the US and its European allies come as French President Emmanuel Macron is due to meet Trump in the White House on Monday, the first such visit by a European leader since the US president’s election.
The Kremlin said it “welcomed and supported” the American “reformatting” of its approach to Russia.
“We can indeed see Washington is attempting to work out what the initial reason for this conflict was, and we hope this analysis will help efforts to settle the conflict,” Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told reporters on Monday, according to the Interfax news agency.
Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Berlin
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