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LONDON — Russia’s Foreign Ministry again warned that Moscow will not accept the presence of any Western troops in Ukraine as part of a future peace deal, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met a group of top European leaders in Paris on Thursday.

“Russia does not intend to discuss unacceptable foreign intervention in Ukraine in any form whatsoever,” spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in comments published by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday. “Western war instigators view Ukraine as a testing ground for their military developments,” she said.

Moscow has repeatedly rebuffed proposals for Western forces to be deployed to Ukraine in any capacity as part of a deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, which began in February 2022.

Nonetheless, the prospect is still under discussion by NATO leaders and the Ukrainian government as an element of the security guarantees Kyiv says are needed to facilitate any U.S.-brokered peace deal.

Zakharova said Thursday that the protections under discussion “are not security guarantees for Ukraine, they are guarantees of threat to the European continent.”

The remarks came before Zelenskyy gathered with European leaders — the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” — for further talks in Paris on Thursday. The group also spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump, who called into the meeting, the White House said.

“President Trump emphasized that Europe must stop purchasing Russian oil that is funding the war — as Russia received €1.1 billion in fuel sales from the EU in one year,” a White House official said following the call. “The president also emphasized that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts.”

European and Canadian leaders finalized a plan outlining potential security guarantees for Ukraine, with 26 countries expressing readiness to take direct action, French President Emmanuel Macron announced following the meeting. Macron said several countries are prepared to contribute “on land, in the sea or in the air” to “reassure the people of Ukraine and maintain the ceasefire once it’s implemented, and maintain and guarantee peace.” “The plan will now be taken to the U.S. with the intention of formalizing it in the coming days,” Macron said.

Other European leaders who attended Thursday’s talks in Paris included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Several other European leaders joined the meeting virtually.

Trump also spoke with Zelenskyy on Thursday following the coalition meeting, with the Ukrainian president calling it a “long and very detailed conversation.”

Zelenskyy said they discussed various ways to “push the situation toward real peace,” with the “most important thing” being strong economic measures.

“The key to peace is depriving the Russian war machine of money and resources,” Zelenskyy said. “We also talked about maximum protection of Ukrainian skies. Until there is peace, Ukrainians must not be dependent on constant Russian attacks; Russian missiles and drones must not take lives. Ukraine proposed that the U.S. consider a special format for protecting Ukrainian skies.”

Speaking with journalists on Wednesday, Trump pushed back on one reporter’s suggestion of his “lack of action” on Russia in response to its continued offensive operations and long-range attacks in Ukraine, despite his repeated threats of further sanctions and tariffs on Moscow.

“How do you know there’s no action? Would you say that, putting secondary sanctions on India, the largest purchaser outside of China, they’re almost equal, would you say there was no action that costs hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia? You call that no action?” Trump said.

The president was referring to the recent imposition of 25% tariffs on all imported Indian goods in response to New Delhi’s purchases of Russian energy goods and military equipment.

“And I haven’t done phase two yet,” Trump continued. “Or phase three. But when you say there’s no action, I think you ought to get yourself a new job. Because if you remember, two weeks ago, I did — I said, if India buys, India’s got big problems. And that’s what happened. So don’t tell me about that.”

Trump and Putin met in Alaska nearly three weeks ago. After that event, Trump suggested that a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy should be the next step in the negotiations process.

The Kremlin has given no indication of its willingness to support such a meeting, though Putin suggested this week that a meeting could take place in Moscow.

Kyiv quickly dismissed that proposal. Foreign Minister Andri Sybiha said in a post to X, “Putin continues to mess around with everyone by making knowingly unacceptable proposals.”

Trump told reporters on Wednesday he had “no message” for Putin. “He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other whatever his decision is will either be happy about it or unhappy and if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen.”

“We’ve taken very strong action, as you know, and in other ways we’ve taken very strong action,” Trump continued. “But I’ll be speaking to him over the next few days and we’re going to see with him. I’m going to know exactly what’s happened.”

Fresh jobs data on Friday showed a continued hiring slowdown in the first such release since a dismal jobs report last month prompted President Donald Trump to fire the top official tasked with compiling labor statistics. The reading fell well short of economists’ expectations.

The U.S. added 22,000 jobs in August, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure showed a sharp decrease from 79,000 jobs added in the previous month. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, but it remained at a historically low level.

A previous jobs report showed a sharp slowdown of hiring over the summer, eliciting concern among some economists about a possible recession.

The U.S. added an average of about 28,000 jobs over three months ending in July, which marked a major cooldown from the roughly 196,000 jobs added on average over the previous three-month period, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showed.

The jobs report on Friday included a downward revision for the month of June, saying the U.S. labor market had lost 13,000 jobs that month, much lower than a previous estimate of 14,000 jobs added. It marked the first monthly job loss since December 2020.

The latest jobs data holds implications for a widely expected interest rate cut when top Federal Reserve policymakers gather in two weeks.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently said the central bank would “proceed carefully” but he hinted at the possibility of an interest rate cut, appearing to indicate greater concern for flagging employment growth than rising prices.

The lower-than-expected reading on Friday could cement a potential interest rate cut, which would amount to the first interest-rate adjustment since last year.

Late Thursday, investors pegged the chances of a quarter-point rate cut this month at 97%, according to CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment. As of Friday morning, the odds of a a quarter-point cut had risen to 99%.

Hours after the release of the weak jobs report last month, Trump removed BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. The jobs report featured downward revisions, prompting Trump to suggest without evidence that the job statistics had been “manipulated.” The BLS routinely revises estimates of jobs added in previous months.

McEntarfer, a Biden appointee who was confirmed by the Senate in 2024, had served in the federal government for two decades.

“It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy,” McEntarfer said in a social media post after her dismissal. “It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation.”

William Beach, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by Trump, condemned McEntarfer’s dismissal.

“The totally groundless firing of Dr. Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS, sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau,” Beach posted on X.

McEntarfer did not respond to an earlier ABC News request for comment.

As a replacement for McEntarfer, Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. Antoni is a longtime critic of the BLS and a contributor to the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025.

“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump said of Antoni in a social media post.

LONDON — The Kremlin on Thursday said Russia President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, though a specific date or location has yet to be announced.

Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov said that a “meeting between Putin and Trump (will take place) in the coming days,” adding that “work on the summit has now begun,” the Kremlin says.

Ushakov said that White House special envoy Steve Witkoff had raised the idea of a trilateral meeting between Putin, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but that the upcoming meeting would only be between Trump and Putin, the Kremlin said.

“The venue of the meeting between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, has been agreed, and the Kremlin will inform about it later,” Ushakov said.

Witkoff met with Putin on Wednesday ahead of Trumps’ Friday deadline for Moscow to make peace with Ukraine or face severe sanctions.

Trump, on social media, suggested the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was “highly productive.”

“Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” Trump wrote.

Just last month, Trump said he would impose additional economic measures — including secondary sanctions on Russian fossil fuel export customers, the largest of which are India and China — if Putin failed to agree to a ceasefire by Aug. 8.

President Donald Trump this week spoke at length about his relationship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but his accounts raise new questions about when exactly the two fell out and why.

Trump said on Monday that his relationship with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking young girls and women, soured because Epstein poached some employees after he explicitly warned him not to do so.

Trump on Tuesday went on to say that Epstein “stole” young women who worked at the spa at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “People were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

One of those workers, Trump said, was Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein accuser who said she was recruited by his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, when Giuffre was an underage teenager working as a locker-room attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking minors and now serving a 20-year prison sentence, has denied the allegations. Giuffre died by suicide this past April at age 41.

“I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa, I think so, I think that was one of the people,” Trump first said when asked about Giuffre before going on to say more definitively, “Yeah, he stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, none whatsoever.”

According to Social Security records submitted to the court during Giuffre’s defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Giuffre was employed at Mar-a-Lago Club LLC in 2000 and earned $1,866.50 during that calendar year. The duration and precise dates of her employment at Trump’s club remained in dispute when the lawsuit settled in 2017.

Giuffre — then known as Virginia Roberts — subsequently went on to travel extensively around the world with Epstein and Maxwell over the next two years, according to flight logs kept by one of Epstein’s pilots that have been entered into court records in civil and criminal cases.

Trump’s comments came after the White House last week said Epstein was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago for being a “creep.”

Asked about the discrepancy between the White House’s reasoning for his split with Epstein and his own that it was over Epstein stealing his employees, Trump said on Tuesday “it’s sort of a little bit of the same thing.”

As he told reporters that Epstein poached young female staff, Trump said “people would come and complain, ‘this guy is taking people from the spa.’ I didn’t know that.”

“And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.’ I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again and I said, ‘Out of here,'” Trump said.

But previous comments from Trump suggested his falling out with Epstein occurred several years later than that.

In 2002, Trump praised Epstein in a New York magazine profile of the now-deceased financier and convicted sex offender.

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told the magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Then in 2004, the two men were rivals over a property in Florida as reported by the Washington Post. Trump ultimately won the property at auction.

In 2019, when Epstein was arrested on federal charges, Trump said he hadn’t spoken with Epstein in 15 years.

“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I’d say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his.”

Asked at the time for the reason behind their falling out and why Epstein was banned from Mar-a-Lago, Trump responded: “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly.”

ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment on Trump’s explanations of his fallout with Epstein.