FILE – President Donald Trump welcomes Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the White Home in Washington, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025.
Ben Curtis/AP
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Ben Curtis/AP
KYIV — European and NATO leaders introduced Sunday that they will be becoming a member of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for essential talks with President Donald Trump, rallying across the Ukrainian chief after his exclusion from Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The exceptional transfer — with one European chief after one other asserting that they will be at Zelenskyy’s aspect when he travels to the White Home on Monday — was an obvious effort to make sure that the assembly goes higher than the final one in February, when Trump berated the Ukrainian president in a heated Oval Workplace encounter.
“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,” stated retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s army mission on the United Nations.
“It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,” he stated in a telephone interview.
The European leaders’ presence at Zelenskyy’s aspect, demonstrating Europe’s help for Ukraine, might probably assist ease considerations in Kyiv and in different European capitals that Ukraine dangers being railroaded right into a peace deal that Trump says he desires to dealer with Russia.
It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not all or simply a few of them could be collaborating within the precise assembly with Trump.
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen introduced on X that she is going to participate within the talks, “at the request of President Zelenskyy.”
The secretary-general of the NATO army alliance, Mark Rutte, may even participate within the assembly, his press service stated.
The workplace of President Emmanuel Macron introduced that the French chief will journey on Monday to Washington “at the side of President Zelenskyy” though it did not instantly specify that he’ll be within the assembly.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz may even be a part of the European group, however the assertion from his workplace likewise did not specify that he will probably be within the talks with Trump.
The grouped journey underscored European leaders’ dedication to make sure that Europe has a voice in Trump’s tried peace-making, after the U.S. president’s summit on Friday with Putin — to which Zelenskyy wasn’t invited.
