Zelenskyy publicly was upbeat despite recent diplomatic upheaval between Western countries that have been helping Ukraine with military hardware and financial aid. The turn of events is unwelcome for Ukraine, whose understrength army is having a hard time keep bigger Russian forces at bay. The Ukrainian leader was in London to attend U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s effort to rally his European counterparts around continuing — and likely much increased — support for Ukraine from the continent amid political uncertainty in the U.S., and Trump’s overtures toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Europe is suspicious of Trump’s motives and strategy. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s likely next leader after the recent election, said Monday that he didn’t think last Friday’s Oval Office blow-up was spontaneous.He said that he had watched the scene repeatedly. “My assessment is that it wasn’t a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but apparently an induced escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office,” Merz said. He said that he was “somewhat astonished by the mutual tone,” but there has been “a certain continuity to what we are seeing from Washington at the moment” in recent weeks. “I would advocate for us preparing to have to do a great, great deal more for our own security in the coming years and decades,” he said. (Read More)
