Europeans gather around Zelenskyy but will be difficult to formulate plans to defend Ukraine

European leaders rally around Volodymyr Zelenskyy after bankruptcy of his spectacular Oval Office with Donald Trump, but the rift between Kiev and Washington gives Europe a painful choice on how to support Ukraine.

Friday’s confrontation, the U.S. president accused Ukrainian leaders of “gambling” in World War III, shocking the European capital and exacerbating concerns about irreparable transatlantic violations.

The EU’s chief diplomat and Ukraine’s staunch supporter Kaja Kallas is perhaps the sharpest person in her assessment.

“Today, it’s clear that the free world needs a new leader. Europeans, it’s up to us to deal with this challenge,” she said.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre described the extraordinary scenes of the White House as “serious and frustrating.”

“Trump accused Zelenskyy of gambling with World War III, which is very unreasonable, and my own remarks are far from me,” he said.

Many other European leaders lag behind Zelenskyy without directly criticizing the U.S. president.

“Your dignity respects the heroism of the Ukrainian people. Strong, brave, fearless. Dear President Zelenskyy, you will never be alone,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa said in a joint statement.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promises “unwavering support”.

“I think we all know this: There is an invader, Russia, and another attacked, and it is Ukraine,” French President Emmanuel Macron met with Trump at the White House on Monday, the first European leader to defend Zelenskyy on Friday night.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is waiting for the German Chancellor, said Berlin[s] Ukraine is in good testing time. In this terrible war, we must not confuse the invaders and the victims. ”

On Saturday, CDU foreign policy spokesman Jürgen Hardt [in Moscow]. ”

Support for Ukraine and expressions of direct or indirect Trump’s condemnation highlight how transatlantic relations were broken by the U.S. president’s rapid end to the war and repair relations with Moscow.

Trump’s hostile stance on Ukraine, his threat to eliminate protections of NATO allies, who don’t spend more on defense, his vow on EU imports to impose a 25% tariff on EU imports has already made Europe need to develop a plan to reduce its dependence on the United States. However, there is no clear plan for how this will be achieved in the near term.

The breakdown of the relationship between Zelenskyy and Trump also exerted pressure on the European Senior Leaders’ Meeting to be held in London on Sunday as Starmer hosted a hasty summit.

The summit aims to develop proposals to jointly protect Ukraine and increase spending on defense, thereby reducing mainland reliance on the United States.

“We finally need to wake up and realize, ‘that’s it,'” senior EU diplomat said in response to the White House consequences. “We were alone, parents on the other side of the Atlantic just threw us out of our family homes, cut off our allowances and canceled our forgetting.”

Trump’s verbal attack on Zelenskyy comes days after more than a dozen European leaders travelled to Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, leaving any lingering hope that they can convince the U.S. president to reconsider his quick peace deal.

During his visit to the White House this week, Macron and Starmer made a coordinated effort to convince Trump to provide military support for possible European stable forces in Ukraine, which they both said was essential. The efforts were derailed by a showdown at the White House on Friday.

On Friday night, no 10 Downing Street said Starmer had spoken with Zelenskyy and Trump and was “to play his role in finding a way forward.”

Italian Nationalist Conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for an “immediate summit” between the EU and us to “talk frankly about our intention to face today’s huge challenges starting with Ukraine”.

There is a notable exception to the choir of Europe’s support for Zelenskyy: Hungarian pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán supports Trump.

“The strong make peace, the weak make war.” Today, President Trump stands bravely for peace. Even if many people are difficult to digest. Thank you, Mr. President. ”

Putin wrote on social media that the Security Council representative, former stand-in president, called the incident “a fierce dress in the Oval Office.”

Trump tells the clown [Zelenskyy] The truth on his face: The Kiev regime is in a war with the Third World. . . This helps. That’s not enough – we need to stop military support,” he wrote.