Zelenskyy warns survival against Russia ‘very difficult’ without US, as Vance targets Europe’s leaders – Europe live | Ukraine

German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy are scheduled to speak on the second day of the Munich Security Conference.

Among other speakers to speak at the conference on Saturday are Nato secretary general Mark Rutte and foreign ministers from countries including Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and from Syria’s new government.

JD Vance stuns Munich conference with blistering attack on Europe’s leaders

Patrick Wintour

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has launched a brutal ideological assault on Europe, accusing its leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs.

In a chastising speech on Friday that openly questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US, he painted a picture of European politics infected by media censorship, cancelled elections and political correctness.

Arguing that the true threat to Europe stemmed not from external actors such as Russia or China, but Europe’s own internal retreat from some of its “most fundamental values”, he repeatedly questioned whether the US and Europe any longer had a shared agenda. “What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vance said.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the vice-president had been expected to address the critical question of the Ukraine war and security differences between Washington and Europe. Instead, he widely skated over these to give a lecture on what he claimed was the continent’s failure to listen to the populist concerns of voters.

Vance said of Donald Trump’s re-election: “There is a new sheriff in town.” He said: “Democracy will not survive if their people’s concerns are deemed invalid or even worse not worth being considered.”

The blistering and confrontational remarks were met with shock at the conference and were later condemned by the EU and Germany, while drawing praise from Russian state television. They signalled a deepening of the transatlantic chasm beyond different perceptions of Russia to an even deeper societal rupture about values and the nature of democracy.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Ukraine has little chance of surviving Russia’s assault without US support, after the phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin earlier in the week.

The Ukrainian president said in an interview on NBC Meet the Press, which will be broadcast on Sunday:

Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have low chance – low chance to survive without support of the United States.”

After the conversation between Trump and Putin, after which Trump said he and Putin have agreed to begin negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine, Zelenskyy told Meet the Press that the Russian president wanted to come to the negotiating table not to end the war but to lift some global sanctions and allow Moscow’s military to regroup.

“This is really what he wants. He wants pause, prepare, train, take off some sanctions because of ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said.

Amid concerns that Ukraine may be sidelined in any deal between the US and Russia, Zelenskyy met JD Vance on Friday during the Munich Security Conference, telling the US vice-president that his country wants “security guarantees” and a joint US-Ukrainian peace plan before he enters into any talks with Putin to end the war.

Earlier in the day, European leaders claimed to have won US assurances that Ukraine’s leadership would be fully consulted over any peace talks with Russia and that the sovereignty of Ukraine would be protected, as they sought to ease fears that Trump was on the brink of abandoning Kyiv.

Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Nato chief Mark Rutte are among those to address the conference on Saturday.

In other developments:

• The widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has warned there is “no point trying to negotiate” with Putin on Ukraine. “Just remember: he will lie,” Yulia Navalnaya told the Munich Security Conference on Friday. “If he remains in power, he will find a way to break the agreement. If he loses power, the agreement will become meaningless.”

• The talks between Zelenskyy and Vance ended without an announcement of a critical minerals deal that is central to Kyiv’s push to win Trump’s backing. Kyiv came back to the US earlier with a revised draft agreement of the deal that could open up its vast resources of key minerals to US investment. “Our teams will continue to work on the document,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

• The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said he assured his Ukrainian counterpart that it’s “Ukrainians alone who can drive the discussions for a solid and lasting peace” with Russia. “We will help them in this endeavour,” Macron wrote on X on Friday after a phone call with Zelenskyy, adding if Trump “can truly convince president Putin to stop the aggression against Ukraine, that is great news”.

• A Russian drone carrying a high-explosive warhead struck the protective containment shell of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Zelenskyy said the damage to the shelter was “significant” and had started a fire, but he added that radiation levels at the plant had not increased. The SBU security service said the Iranian-designed Shahed drone intended to hit the reactor enclosure.