BRUSSELS >> President Donald Trump on Thursday offered reassurances that Ukraine would be involved in negotiations to end the war with Russia, a day after his remarks left that prospect in doubt and alarmed officials in Kyiv and Ukraine’s European allies with the possibility that they would be left out of peace talks.

“Of course they would,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question in the Oval Office in Washington about whether Ukraine would have a place at the table. “I mean, they’re part of it. We would have Ukraine, we would have Russia, and we would have other people involved, too.”

European leaders Thursday demanded a role in any discussions between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia to end the conflict, negotiations that could set the terms of peace and redraw the map of Europe.

Some of the closest allies of the United States, including Britain and Germany, were among those asserting that Ukraine — and their own countries — had a right to be at the negotiating table.

“Europe must be involved in the negotiations — and I think that’s very easy to understand,” said Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister. The continent, he said, “will have to live directly” with the consequences of any deal, and may have “to play a central or the main role in the peace order.”

Pistorius and other NATO defense ministers made their comments at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday, a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders would be “unrealistic” and Trump held a lengthy phone call with Putin that signaled a potential willingness to make concessions to Russia that Ukraine has previously deemed unacceptable.

Trump’s and Hegseth’s comments suggested that the United States may expect Ukraine to give up part of its territory seized by Russia, as well as its goal of becoming a member of NATO, which Russia vehemently opposes. But some European officials argued Thursday against prematurely surrendering on those issues, since they will be critical bargaining chips in any deal.

On Thursday evening, during a news conference at the White House with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, Trump continued to cast doubt on NATO membership for Ukraine. When he was asked what Russia should give up in a deal to end the war, he responded by arguing that the war never would have started on his watch. “Maybe Russia will give up a lot, maybe they won’t,” he said.

When Trump said Wednesday that he and Putin had begun talks to end the war, he notably made no mention of Ukraine taking part in the negotiations — an omission that triggered alarm throughout nations allied with Ukraine in Europe that Kyiv’s interests would be sidelined in the process.

After speaking by phone with Putin — he then spoke with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine — Trump had suggested that borders could be redrawn and that NATO membership for Ukraine would be unrealistic.

Trump also said that reciprocal visits with Putin were likely. Saudi Arabia, he said, might host the peace talks. The Kremlin’s spokesperson said Thursday that Russia believed that a meeting between Putin and Trump should take place “fairly quickly” but that it was too soon to discuss dates.

Zelenskyy, reacting Thursday to the Trump-Putin phone call, argued that his country must be involved in talks over its own fate.

“We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” he told journalists in Ukraine.

Later on Thursday afternoon, Trump said that he had conferred with both Putin and Zelenskyy and that he believed Putin wanted peace.

“I think he would tell me if he didn’t,” Trump said.

Russia triumphant

The news of Trump’s initiative to end the war reverberated across Europe, from the gilded halls of power in Western Europe to the muddy trenches on the front line of the war. In Russia, financial markets skyrocketed, the ruble jumped, and business leaders in Moscow rejoiced.

Russian officials and state-backed media sounded triumphant after Wednesday’s call between Trump and Putin.

Senior lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said the call “will go down in the history of world politics and diplomacy.”

“I am sure that in Kyiv, Brussels, Paris and London they are now reading Trump’s lengthy statement on his conversation with Putin with horror and cannot believe their eyes,” Pushkov wrote on his messaging app.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said in an opinion column: “The U.S. finally hurt Zelenskyy for real,” adding that Trump had found “common ground” with Putin.

The pro-Kremlin Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda went even further and published a column stating in the headline that “Trump signed Zelenskyy’s death sentence.”

Many in Europe shuddered at the prospect of renewed Russian influence on the continent and a diminished Ukraine.

“Let’s not forget, Russia remains a threat well beyond Ukraine,” John Healey, Britain’s defense secretary, said Thursday.

Hegseth focused his remarks at the NATO meeting in Brussels on calling on European countries to spend more on defense.

He also criticized comments European leaders commonly make about prioritizing their values. “Values are important,” he said, “but you can’t shoot values.”

Military action slows

The Trump administration’s push to start negotiations to end the war comes at a time of dwindling prospects for a military resolution of the conflict.

The pace of Russia’s multipronged offensive across eastern Ukraine has been dropping since November, with the Kremlin’s forces occupying just 19 additional square miles this month, according to Deep State, a group that analyzes combat videos and has close links to the Ukrainian army. The Russian military is also struggling to dislodge Ukrainian soldiers from a sliver of Russian territory in the western Kursk region despite committing tens of thousands of fighters and reinforcements from North Korea to the campaign.

Russia and Ukraine are both seeking to replace soldiers that have been killed or injured on the battlefield.

The Russian government has offered growing bonuses and salaries to attract new recruits, a financial spiral that is contributing to destabilizing the Russian economy. Ukraine, for its part, is resorting to more draconian mobilization tactics to make up for the decline in volunteers.

Mixed reactions in Ukraine

In Ukraine, soldiers greeted the news of Trump’s initiative with a mix of fear and resignation. Holed up in a small wooden house on a side road near the front, a Ukrainian battalion commander, Lt. Col. Vadim Balyuk, said he feared the worst for his country.

“If we stop the fighting right now, it will give Trump the opportunity to stop the flow of weapons and ammunition to us,” Balyuk said. “This will allow Putin to build up his army — and in two years he could take over Ukraine very easily.”

On a foggy winter morning in Kyiv, the square in front of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery was filled with soldiers who had come to the funeral of a fallen comrade.

Observing the funeral was Oleksandr Liubun, 63, who lives in Lukianivka, a district that is often attacked by the Russian military. “I want it to be finally over,” he said.

Yulia Liubintsova, 41, the head of a ballet dancers union, also expressed hope for peace negotiations. “I understand that we will not return our territories as we have no people left to fight,” she said. “There are so much fewer of us, so much fewer, so only negotiations can help.”

But near the front line, Ukrainian soldiers said they felt isolated and abandoned. A soldier who identified himself by the call sign Kocubaka said that even though troops were exhausted, negotiating with Russia felt “too painful” to even consider.

“We know that, in the end, it will only be us fighting for our freedom, for our independence,” he said. “We’ll keep fighting, because there is no other choice.”

This report includes information from the Associated Press.