Zelensky calls for ‘armed forces of Europe’ as EU leaders bristle at new US policies on Ukraine
Zelensky also told The Associated Press on Saturday that he “didn’t let” his ministers sign an agreement with the US on the extraction of minerals in the country because “it is not ready to protect us, our interest”. Ukraine hopes to offer rare earth elements essential for many kinds of technology in exchange for continued military aid.
Earlier, Zelensky alluded to a phone conversation between Trump and Putin this week, after which Trump said he and Putin would probably meet soon to negotiate a peace deal over Ukraine – breaking with the Biden administration’s harder line against Moscow over Russia’s all-out assault on Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the US State Department said on Saturday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken by phone. Rubio reaffirmed Trump’s “commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues”, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Trump previously assured Zelensky that he would have a seat at the table to end the war, and the Ukrainian leader insisted that Europe should also have one.
“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement, and the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” Zelensky said, adding that “not once did [Trump] mention that America needs Europe at the table.”
“That says a lot,” he said. “The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.”
Europeans likely excluded from Ukraine peace talks
European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from Washington on issues including democracy and Ukraine’s future as the Trump administration continues to upend trans-Atlantic conventions that have been in place since after World War II.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, all but cut Europeans out of any Ukraine-Russia talks, despite Zelensky’s call for Europe to take part.
“You can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking,” Kellogg said at an event hosted by a Ukrainian tycoon. Pressed on whether that meant Europeans wouldn’t be included, he said: “I’m a school of realism. I think that’s not going to happen.”
US Vice President J.D. Vance chastised Europe’s leaders at the conference and suggested that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent.Credit: AP
“We need to ensure Ukrainian sovereignty,” he said, before adding: The “European alliance … are going to be critical to this.”
At the conference, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described the new US stance as a “moment of truth” that requires European leaders to overcome their differences and unite for a meaningful peace in Ukraine.
“This is an existential moment. It’s a moment where Europe has to stand up,” she said. “There won’t be any lasting peace if it’s not a European-agreed peace.”
Iceland’s Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir lamented a lack of clarity from Washington.
“People are still not sure what the US wants to do. And I think it would be good if we came out of this conference if they had a clear picture of it,” she said.
German chancellor hits back at Vance
Earlier, Scholz said he was “pleased” at what he called a shared commitment with the US to “preserving the sovereign independence of Ukraine” and agreed with Trump that the Russia-Ukraine war must end.
But Scholz also condemned the new political tack from Washington, affirming his strong stance against the far-right and said his country won’t accept people who “intervene in our democracy”.
A day earlier, Vance chastised Europe’s leaders at the conference and suggested that free speech was “in retreat” across the continent.
The vice president said no democracy could survive telling millions of voters that their concerns “are invalid or unworthy of even being considered”. He also met the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party, which is polling second ahead of Scholz’s own Social Democrats before the February 23 election in Germany.
Alluding to Germany’s Nazi past, Scholz said the longstanding commitment to “Never Again” – a return to the extreme right – wasn’t reconcilable with support for AfD.
“We will not accept that people who look at Germany from the outside intervene in our democracy and our elections and in the democratic opinion-forming process in the interest of this party,” he said. “That’s just not done, certainly not amongst friends and allies. We resolutely reject this.”
Not all responses from European leaders were negative.
President Karin Keller-Sutter of Switzerland, which isn’t an EU member, was quoted by Swiss daily Le Temps as saying Vance had spoken about “values to defend and that we share, like freedom and the possibility for people to express themselves”.
AP
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