The News
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer Saturday, ahead of a European leaders meeting in London Sunday. Before the closed door talks, the British leader told Zelenskyy that Ukraine has “full backing across the United Kingdom,” stressing that “we stand with you for as long as it may take.”
Many of the bloc’s most senior officials and heads of state have voiced support for Ukraine after a disastrous Oval Office meeting between the leaders of Kyiv and Washington descended into a televised war of words.
The row derailed plans to finalize a critical minerals deal that was to underpin a shifting security relationship.
The remarks served to underscore the widening gap in ties between the US and Europe, once close transatlantic allies who since US President Donald Trump’s return to office have engaged in a series of public spats and are nearing a trade dispute.
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Friday’s meeting was cut short with Trump saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “not ready for Peace if America is involved,” following the fractious exchange in full view of television cameras. Zelenskyy was in Washington to sign a minerals deal agreed earlier in the week, and Kyiv had hoped the talks would secure continued American backing to repel Russia’s military invasion.
During the meeting, Trump and Vice President JD Vance criticized Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently thankful for US military support. A White House official later told reporters that there was a palpable “hostility with Zelenskyy and his body language and his attitude,” adding: “He was talking about security guarantees, getting ahead of what today was for, which was the economic deal.”
The Ukrainian leader left the White House without having signed the deal, later posting on X: “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit.”
The View From Washington
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who was seated next to Vance during the Oval Office meeting but did not speak while the cameras were rolling — told CNN that Zelenskyy should “apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.”
Europe
Brussels
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas posted on X that the bloc would “step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back” against Russia, adding: “Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take the challenge.”
Speaking to the BBC on Saturday, NATO chief Mark Rutte urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “find a way” to repair his relationship with US President Donald Trump.
“I have been twice on the phone now with President Zelenskyy. I told him this, we need to stick together, the United States, Ukraine and Europe to bring Ukraine to a durable peace,” Rutte said.
London
Britain vowed “unwavering support” for Kyiv and said London — which will on Sunday host a summit of European leaders focused on Ukraine — wanted “to find a path forward to a lasting peace based on sovereignty and security for Ukraine.” The statement came just days after what had been seen as a successful trip to Washington by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had sought to win Trump over on the need for security guarantees for Ukraine.
Starmer met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday in London ahead of Sunday’s leader gathering.
At Zelenskyy’s request, the Ukrainian leader will also meet King Charles III on Sunday, an encounter that comes just days after Starmer invited US President Donald Trump for what he described as an “unprecedented” second state visit.
Berlin
In an X post addressed to Ukraine’s leader, Germany’s presumptive next Chancellor Friedrich Merz — who won a general election last month but has yet to form a coalition government — said Berlin stands “with Ukraine in good and in testing times. We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.”
Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron said he was open to discussions for a European nuclear deterrent Saturday in an interview with Portuguese media.
“I am available to open this discussion...if it allows to build a European force,” Macron said, adding that “There has always been a European dimension to France’s vital interests within its nuclear doctrine.”
The remarks suggest Macron is open to France defending other European countries in the face of Russia’s security threats, Reuters noted.
Notable
- “With Trump in power, conventional wisdom in Ankara, Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, and Washington... will decree that there is no one system and no agreed-on set of rules,” the director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute wrote in a piece for Foreign Affairs that examines how US PResident Donald Trump’s vision of America arose and continues to develop.
- Ukraine’s stunned elite are increasingly asking whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy remains the right person to lead the country, The Economist wrote.