Zelenskyy Meets European Leaders Commemorating 3 Years Of Invasion: Ukraine Still Alive, Fighting

JAKARTA - Ukraine has promised to start the fourth year of an all-out war with Russia. Kyiv hosted many European and world leaders to attend a summit to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the Russian invasion.

Last week, Donald Trump denounced Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an unpopular "dictator" and needed to immediately make a peace agreement or lose his country, while the Ukrainian leader said the US president was living in a "disinformation bubble".

Beyond the war of words, US officials opened direct talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia last week, closing access to Kyiv and Europe in a stunning change of war policy.

Washington insists it will not send troops as security guarantees Kyiv coveted if a peace agreement is reached, burdening European countries that are likely to be struggling without US support.

Zelenskyy, who asked Europe to form its own forces and urged Washington to be pragmatic, has been making more than a dozen phone calls since Friday, especially with European leaders, to find a way forward.

Three years after the start of Putin's 'three days' special military operation, Ukraine is still alive, at war and our country has more friends in the world than ever before, Zelenskyy said at a summit of leaders visiting Kyiv to commemorate the 3-year invasion.

They include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and Canadian leaders, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.

Leaders of Albania, England, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and Turkey spoke via video link. There is no sign of any US representatives.

Representatives of the countries paid their respects to Ukrainian soldiers who died in the war, standing still in front of a memorial made of flags in the city center square of Kyiv. Airstrikes were heard as they met to hold talks, although no missile strikes had taken place.

In this struggle to survive, it's not just Ukraine's fate at stake. This is European destiny," von der Leyen wrote on X.

Thousands of Ukrainians have died and more than six million people have lived as refugees abroad since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion by land, sea and air, which has sparked the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Military losses are a major disaster, although they remain a closely guarded secret.

Western estimates based on intelligence reports vary widely, but most say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or injured on both sides.

This tragedy has touched many families all over Ukraine, where military funerals are commonplace in big cities and remote villages. People are exhausted by airstrike sirens that can't sleep at night.