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European leaders rallied around Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his spectacular Oval Office bust-up with Donald Trump, but the rift between Kyiv and Washington leaves Europe with agonising choices about how to prop up Ukraine.
Friday’s confrontation, where the US president accused the Ukrainian leader of “gambling” with a third world war, caused consternation in European capitals and exacerbated fears of an irreparable transatlantic breach.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat and a staunch supporter of Ukraine, was perhaps the most pointed in her appraisal.
“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” she said.
Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway’s prime minister, described the extraordinary scenes in the White House as “serious and disheartening”.
“That Trump accuses Zelenskyy of gambling with world war three is deeply unreasonable and a statement I distance myself from,” he said.
A score of other European leaders closed ranks behind Zelenskyy without criticising the US president directly.
“Your dignity honours the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President Zelenskyy,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and António Costa, president of the European Council, said in a joint statement.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged his “unwavering support”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who met Trump at the White House on Monday, was the first European leader to defend Zelenskyy on Friday evening, stating: “I think we all know the situation: there is an aggressor, which is Russia, and there is an attacked people, which is Ukraine.”
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, said Berlin “stand[s] with Ukraine in good and in testing times. We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.”
The expressions of support for Ukraine — and rebukes of Trump, direct or indirect — underscore how the transatlantic relationship has been fractured by Trump’s hasty attempts to end the war and repair ties with Moscow.
Trump’s antagonistic stance towards Ukraine, his threat to remove protection of European Nato allies who do not spend more on defence, and his vow to impose 25 per cent tariffs on EU imports have made stark that Europe needs to formulate a plan to reduce its reliance on the US. However, there is no clear plan for how to achieve that in the short term.
The breakdown in relations between Zelenskyy and Trump also piles pressure on senior European leaders meeting in London on Sunday for a hastily arranged summit hosted by Starmer.
The summit is aimed at formulating proposals to collectively protect Ukraine and boost spending on defence, reducing the continent’s dependence on America.
“We finally need to wake up and realise: ‘This is it’,” said a senior EU diplomat in response to the White House fallout. “We are on our own and the parents on the other side of the Atlantic have just turfed us out of the family home, cut off our allowances and disinherited us.”
Trump’s verbal assault on Zelenskyy, which came days after a dozen European leaders travelled to Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, blew away any lingering hopes that they could convince the American president to rethink his approach to a rapid peace deal.
During their visits to the White House this week, Macron and Starmer made a co-ordinated attempt to persuade Trump to provide military back-up for a possible European stabilisation force in Ukraine, which they both said was indispensable. Those efforts have been derailed by Friday’s showdown in the White House.
Ten Downing Street on Friday evening said Starmer had spoken to both Zelenskyy and Trump and was “playing his part to find a path forward”.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s nationalist conservative prime minister, called for an “immediate summit” between the EU and US “to speak frankly about how we intend to face today’s great challenges, starting with Ukraine”.
There was one notable exception to the chorus of European support for Zelenskyy: Hungary’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sided with Trump.
“Strong men make peace, weak men make war,” Orban said. “Today President Trump stood bravely for peace. Even if it was difficult for many to digest. Thank you, Mr President.”
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