US President Donald Trump said he would be speaking to European leaders shortly as he prepares for his summit later this week with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

"Will be speaking to European Leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done," Trump wrote on social media Wednesday.

The call comes as Trump ramps up diplomatic efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine — now well into its fourth year — with a face—to-face meeting with Putin on American soil. 

The sitdown slated for Friday in Alaska has raised worries among Kyiv's allies that the US and Russian presidents may negotiate a deal that swaps land for peace without Ukraine's input or leaves Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sidelined or without the security assurances needed to deter further aggression.

Earlier: European Leaders Want to Speak to Trump Before He Meets Putin

Trump has said that there may be "some changes" in land, but has also sought to downplay expectations for the summit, casting it as a "feel-out meeting" and saying that he would confer with Ukrainian and European leaders after his gathering with Putin.

"I'm going to be telling him, ‘You got to end this war. You got to end it,'" Trump said Monday at a White House press conference. "I may leave and say, ‘Good luck,' and that'll be the end. I may say this is not going to be settled."

Trump lashed out at what he said was "very unfair media" ahead of the Putin summit in a subsequent social media post on Wednesday.

"If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal!," Trump wrote.

Zelenskiy has ruled out Putin's demand for territory that Moscow does not control as a pre-condition for a ceasefire, saying that he would need to seek constitutional approval for such a move. That explanation appeared to rankle Trump earlier this week.

Trump has indicated that he did not plan to invite Zelenskiy to the summit, saying the next step after the bilateral meeting would be for Putin and the Ukrainian president to meet directly. Trump offered to mediate that conversation, if necessary.

The call with European leaders follows a weekend of diplomacy between US, Ukrainian and European officials. European leaders have said that any peace agreement must "respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity."

Source: Bloomberg