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European leaders gathered in Kyiv on Tuesday to mark four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion. But the Trump administration sent no senior officials — reflecting the more equidistant US stance as its efforts to bring the war to an end have faltered.
The presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen, arrived by train early on Tuesday accompanied by eight EU prime ministers and presidents and several other senior officials to mark the day and pay respect to the tens of thousands of people killed in the war.
In a video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflected on the anniversary with a mix of sadness and pride.
“We have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood,” he said from inside the wartime bunker set up in February 2022 as Russian forces rolled into Ukraine. “Ukraine exists not just on the map . . . Our capital stands.
“Putin has not achieved his goals,” he added. “He has not broken Ukrainians. He has not won this war.”
Zelenskyy and his wife Olena Zelenska, as well as other top Ukrainian officials, were set to meet European leaders to further co-ordinate efforts to bring Russia’s invasion to an end.
The Ukrainian president’s office said the visiting leaders would also tour an energy facility destroyed by the Russian missile and drone strikes in recent weeks that have brought Kyiv to the brink of catastrophe during the harshest winter in more than a decade.
EU leaders arrived in Kyiv mostly empty-handed after Hungary vetoed a €90bn loan as well as fresh sanctions against Russia in a deepening conflict with Ukraine, which it accused of blocking Russian pipeline oil shipments.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted a video message on Tuesday saying: “Do not count on us — we will not give money, we will not give soldiers, we will not go to war.” Orbán, who is facing contested elections in April, has made Ukraine the central element of his campaign.
Orbán “previously refused to allow weapons to transit through his country,” Zelenskyy told the FT in an interview on Monday. “You were playing along with Putin, we set that aside. Now you are blocking €90bn . . . money we need for weapons, for survival. We need this money to survive, and you block it. How are we supposed to treat you?”
Several rounds of peace negotiations including three rounds of trilateral talks between American, Ukrainian and Russian officials have so far failed to achieve any significant breakthrough. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has stuck to his maximalist position, demanding more territory than its troops have been able to capture by force, while Zelenskyy has insisted that no land can simply be surrendered.
Zelenskyy told the FT that, to his frustration, the US was pursuing a strategy of pressuring “both sides” and positioning itself “in the middle” in an effort to broker a settlement.
“I place my hope in President Trump — in him and in his country — that they will put pressure on Russia and stop Putin,” he added. “Ukraine needs a ceasefire — yesterday, today, tomorrow.
“We don’t need a pause,” he said. “We need the end of the war.”
The Ukrainian president has said Washington is pressing to bring the war to an end by summer so that the White House and Republicans can focus on midterm elections. The US embassy in Kyiv declined to comment about the absence of any senior Trump administration officials on Tuesday.
Russia’s invasion has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s involvement in the second world war against Nazi Germany — and it has come at tremendous human cost. A report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that total casualties on both sides could reach 2mn by spring, with Russia suffering the highest troop losses of any major power in a conflict since the second world war.
Zelenskyy told the FT that Russia’s army lost 167 troops on average in 2025 “for every one kilometre of occupied land”.
Speaking from Brussels, Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato, said that “it is imperative that Ukraine continues to get the military, financial and humanitarian aid it needs to enable Ukraine to defend itself against Russian terror from the skies and to hold the front lines”.
“A promise of help does not end a war,” he said, calling on Kyiv’s western partners to pledge more support for the war-torn nation.
“Ukraine needs ammunition today and every day until the bloodshed stops.”
As part of the ongoing effort to force the Russian leader to end his war, the British government on Tuesday announced its biggest sanctions package against Russia since the start of the war. It targeted Russian energy revenues, including oil exports and key suppliers of military equipment fuelling war efforts.
Russian oil revenues are currently at their lowest since 2020, after the UK and its international partners ratcheted up sanctions pressure on Moscow.
Additional reporting from Laura Dubois in Brussels and Marton Dunai in Budapest