From unanimity on a reparations loan to the unpredictability of Trump, EU leaders will gather this week with agreement on ending the war still fraught with hurdles
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Another week, another flip-flop from Donald Trump on Ukraine. Last month the US president declared that Ukraine could regain all the land lost since the 2022 invasion (“Why not?”) adding that Russia had been fighting “aimlessly” and was in “BIG economic trouble”. But after a two-and-a-half hour phone call with Vladimir Putin, Trump swung back to Moscow-friendly talking points. “Let it be cut the way it is,” he said, referring to Ukrainian territory.
Behind the scenes it was even worse. In a tense meeting at the White House last Friday Trump urged Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give up swathes of territory to Russia, telling him “your country will be destroyed” unless he made a deal with Russia. Ukraine also failed to secure the US Tomahawk missiles Zelenskyy had hoped for.
In the diplomatic scramble to sway the unpredictable, praise-seeking US president, Zelenskyy and 10 European leaders issued a statement on Tuesday declaring their strong support for Trump’s position “that the fighting should stop immediately” and that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.
