BRUSSELS — As Donald Trump’s administration turns on Ukraine, EU and world leaders will head to Kyiv on Monday to rally around President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and talk security guarantees.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be there in person, they announced on X, while leaders from Lithuania, Latvia, Malta and Canada will join either in person or virtually in a unified show of support, several officials told POLITICO.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola will also participate, though it remains to be confirmed “in which format she will be able to join” due to previous commitments, her spokesperson told POLITICO.
The meeting will take place on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, days after the U.S. president blamed Ukraine for starting the war Moscow launched in February 2022.
The meeting comes as the EU’s College of Commissioners announced it was heading to Ukraine to discuss the bloc’s security after top European leaders were left out of Trump’s talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia Feb. 18.
Zelenskyy, who confirmed at a press conference Wednesday that he was expecting several heads of state and EU leaders in Kyiv Feb. 24, is trying to rally allies after Trump called him incompetent and a “dictator without elections” who had duped the U.S. into coughing up tens of billions of dollars in military support.
Since Trump’s tirade, European leaders have pushed back — while Ukrainian politicians, officials and soldiers have also leapt to their president’s defense.
Several people involved in organizing the meeting said they could not disclose the names of the leaders attending for security reasons. When contacted, neither Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands nor Germany answered a request for comment about their potential attendance. The Czech Republic said it wouldn’t send a leader.
French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to travel to Washington next week, U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Wednesday. Former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal confirmed he would be in Kyiv for the week, his spokesperson said.
Macron summoned an emergency “informal” meeting in Paris with world leaders earlier this week to discuss European security as pressure grows to forge a cohesive response to Trump’s divisive plan to end the war in Ukraine. Trump and Macron had a “friendly” but brief conversation just prior to the summit, POLITICO reported on Monday.
A second meeting with Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Belgium as well as Canada and Norway ― both NATO allies — was held on Wednesday.
The Yalta European Strategy (YES) organization, which lobbies for EU accession for Ukraine, is also coordinating with Kyiv authorities to bring together other high-profile attendees, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter who was granted anonymity for security reasons.
Elisa Braun, Nicholas Vinocur, Max Griera, Gregorio Sorgi, Veronika Melkozerova, Giedre Peseckyte, Gabriel Gavin, Camille Gijs, Jordyn Dahl, Šejla Ahmatović, Victor Jack and Suzanne Lynch contributed reporting.
The post World leaders head to Ukraine as Trump cozies up to Putin appeared first on Politico.
