European and NATO leaders announced Sunday that they’ll be joining President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for crucial talks with President Trump, rallying around the Ukrainian leader after his exclusion from Mr. Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The remarkable move — with one European leader after another announcing that they’ll be at Zelenskyy’s side when he travels to the White House on Monday — was an apparent effort to ensure that the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated the Ukrainian president in a heated Oval Office encounter.
“The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,” said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France’s military mission at the United Nations.
“It’s a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,” he said in a phone interview.
The European leaders’ presence at Zelenskyy’s side, demonstrating Europe’s support for Ukraine, could potentially help ease concerns in Kyiv and in other European capitals that Ukraine risks being railroaded into a peace deal that Mr. Trump says he wants to broker with Russia.
Appearing on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday, Rubio pushed back on the idea that European leaders are joining Zelenskyy in Washington to provide the Ukrainian president with backup to prevent him from accepting a bad deal after the contentious meeting earlier this year.
“We’ve been working with these people for weeks, for weeks on this stuff,” Rubio said. “They’re coming here tomorrow because they’re supposed to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come. The president invited them to come.”
The secretary outlined that after the meeting with Putin, “we felt, and I agreed, that there was enough progress — not a lot of progress — but enough progress made in those talks to allow us to move to the next phase.”
“I’m not saying we’re on the verge of a peace deal, but I am saying that we saw movement,” Rubio added. “Enough movement to justify a follow-up meeting with Zelenskyy and the Europeans, enough movement for us to dedicate even more time to this.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether all or just some of the European leaders would be taking part in the actual meeting with Mr. Trump.
Zelenskyy on Sunday night said he had arrived in Washington, D.C., and was “grateful” for Mr. Trump’s invitation.
“We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably. And peace must be lasting. Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East—part of Donbas—and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack,” Zelenskyy wrote. “… I am confident that we will defend Ukraine, effectively guarantee security, and that our people will always be grateful to President Trump, everyone in America, and every partner and ally for their support and invaluable assistance. Russia must end this war, which it itself started. And I hope that our joint strength with America, with our European friends, will force Russia into a real peace. Thank you!”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on X that she will take part in the talks, “at the request of President Zelenskyy.”
The secretary-general of the NATO military alliance, Mark Rutte, will also take part in the meeting, his press service said.
The office of President Emmanuel Macron announced that the French leader will travel on Monday to Washington “at the side of President Zelenskyy” although it didn’t immediately specify that he’ll be in the meeting.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will also be part of the European group, but the statement from his office likewise didn’t specify that he will be in the talks with Mr. Trump.
The grouped trip underscored European leaders’ determination to ensure that Europe has a voice in Mr. Trump’s attempted peace-making, after the U.S. president’s summit on Friday with Putin — to which Zelenskyy wasn’t invited.
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