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Leaders of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d group of nations will hold a video call on Thursday as chaotic American efforts to push through a peace deal<\/a> to end the war in Ukraine reach a crunch moment.<\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a>, said his officials would hand over a revised version of a peace plan to US negotiators on Wednesday before the call with leaders and officials from about 30 countries.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy will be on the call, along with Britain\u2019s Keir Starmer, France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron and Germany\u2019s Friedrich Merz, who had a four-way meeting in Downing Street on Monday<\/a>. They will be joined by numerous other leaders of nations supporting Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThis week may bring news for all of us,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote<\/a> on X. \u201cWe believe that peace has no alternative, and the key questions are how to compel Russia to stop the killings and what specifically will deter Russia from a third invasion.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s call comes a day after Starmer, Macron and Merz spoke to Donald Trump<\/a> and agreed it was a \u201ccritical moment\u201d, according to a British report of the conversation. \u201cIntensive work on the peace plan is continuing and will continue in the coming days,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The European leaders have also been working to draw up security guarantees for Ukraine<\/a> in the event a peace deal is struck, though it is far from clear any western nations are willing to offer meaningful guarantees against further Russian aggression in the event of a peace deal.<\/p>\n Trump has vacillated between appearing supportive and dismissive of Ukraine since taking office at the beginning of this year, but his recent peace drive on terms that seem beneficial to Russia<\/a>, combined with a new US national security strategy that attacks European nations<\/a>, has worried allies. In a repeat of previous cycles of Trump-led peace efforts, Zelenskyy has mobilised European leaders to come to his assistance when under pressure from the US president.<\/p>\n Trump claimed earlier in the week that Zelenskyy had not even read his draft peace plan. \u201cRussia is, I believe, fine with it, but I\u2019m not sure that Zelenskyy is fine with it,\u201d said Trump.<\/p>\n Numerous Russian officials have praised the Trump team\u2019s peace efforts, and Vladimir Putin welcomed the White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner<\/a> for five hours of talks in the Kremlin last week. Russia\u2019s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Trump was the only western leader with \u201can understanding of the reasons that made war in Ukraine inevitable\u201d.<\/p>\n But sceptics say there is little sign that Russia is ready to sign a peace deal, even on the terms proposed by the White House, which include Kyiv giving up control of the entire Donbas region<\/a>. Putin has instead said repeatedly that Moscow wants a \u201ccomprehensive settlement\u201d to the conflict.<\/p>\n At home, Zelenskyy is under pressure on several fronts, after a corruption scandal led him to fire his powerful chief of staff<\/a>, Andriy Yermak, his closest confidant since the start of the full-scale war.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Trump piled further pressure on, claiming Ukraine ought to hold elections<\/a> and suggesting Zelenskyy, whose official term ended in May 2024, might not win them. \u201cThey haven\u2019t had an election in a long time,\u201d Trump told Politico. \u201cYou know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it\u2019s not a democracy any more.\u201d<\/p>\n