Europe calms Trump-Zelensky storm

FRIDAY’S (Feb 28) extraordinary White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky has provoked much global shock. Yet, it may have, unexpectedly, unlocked for Europe a crucial window of opportunity to become more involved in any settlement deal with Russia.

In February, the Trump administration indicated that it saw a purely bilateral process between Washington and Moscow to try to end the war. However, Friday’s remarkable diplomatic bust-up between Trump and Zelensky has helped foster a new Franco-UK-led initiative to try to end the conflict.

This plan, which Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk said showed that Europe has “finally woken up”, was the centrepiece of discussion at Sunday’s summit in London convened by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In attendance were more than a dozen European national leaders – from Ukraine, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania.