European nations are seeking to talk to Donald Trump ahead of the US president`s planned meeting in Alaska with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter, writes Bloomberg.

"The leaders want to speak to him before Friday when Trump and Putin are due to meet, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Any conversation would follow an intense weekend of diplomacy between US, Ukrainian and European officials, which included meetings in the UK Saturday with Vice President JD Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

EU ambassadors were briefed on the talks on Sunday and the bloc`s foreign ministers are scheduled to convene virtually on Monday. The White House didn`t immediately reply to a request for comment on a potential call.

As part of ongoing discussions between US and Russian officials, Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area to Russia as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014, as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a lasting settlement, Bloomberg previously reported. 

Such an outcome would likely require Kyiv to give up parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still under Ukraine`s control and hand Russia a victory that its army couldn`t achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

If the process moves forward, territory would “have to be on the table," along with security guarantees for Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. He suggested that could involve Ukraine acknowledging that it has lost control of some of its territory without formally giving up sovereignty over those regions.

Ukraine and its European allies have been pushing for a ceasefire freezing the current frontline as a first step ahead of talks on a more enduring settlement. They also believe in continuing to apply economic pressure on Moscow through sanctions as a way to shift Putin. Trump had threatened sanctions on Russia ahead of a US deadline that expired last Friday, but the president has so far refrained from taking direct action on the Kremlin beyond applying additional tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil", - reads the article.