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 Trump says he wants to broker with Russia.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether all or just some of them would be taking part in the actual meeting with Trump.
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 Trump.
The grouped trip underscored European leaders’ determination to ensure that Europe has a voice in Trump’s attempted peace-making, after the US president’s summit on Friday with Putin — to which Zelenskyy wasn’t invited.
