Key events
Europe shouldn’t be naive about Russia’s ‘destabilising, confrontational’ force, Nato’s Rutte says
Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte is speaking at the IISS Prague Defence Summit now.
He says he wants to talk about the need to increase European military capabilities to keep the continent safe.
He says Europe needs to respond to “Russia and China investing heavily to build up and modernise their militaries” at “a remarkable, I might say, at a staggering rate.”
He says this equipment is being used against Ukraine, and while the alliance is “working to end this aggression as quickly as possible,” Europe should not be naive about the future.
“This trend is not going to shift or reverse anytime soon. Russia is and for the foreseeable future, will remain, a destabilising and confrontational force in Europe and the world,” he says.
Morning opening: Where there is a will, there is a way
Jakub Krupa
The so-called Coalition of the Willing is meeting today in Paris and online for further talks on security guarantees for Ukraine in case of a peace deal with Russia.
Hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, a group of mostly European leaders – including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy – will discuss how to turn their will to help Ukraine into concrete, specific guarantees that would give Ukraine the confidence that any peace arrangement with Russia could hold.
Welcoming Zelenskyy last night, Macron announced that, after months of work by military planners, Europe was finally ready to provide the guarantees and would politically endorse their plan at the meeting today. Let’s see what it entails.
The leaders start arriving around 9am BST, 10am CEST for talks among themselves, before holding a call with US president Donald Trump at 1pm BST/2pm CEST. We will hear what they agreed on an hour later.
For what it’s worth, Trump declared last night that he had been thinking about organising a face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but did not commit to any specific action.
“Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done,” he told CBS.
Earlier, he told reporters at a meeting with the Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, that Putin would have to make a decision on next steps and “if we are unhappy about it, you will see things happen”.
Whatever that means.
Let’s see what the day brings us. I will bring you all the key updates here.
It’s Thursday, 4 September 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
