U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders used a security summit in London to demonstrate broad support for Ukraine. Behind the scenes, though, they were scrambling to get Volodymyr Zelenskyy back to the table with U.S. President Donald Trump.
From Starmer to his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron, leaders spent the weekend in a diplomatic whirlwind as they tried to fix last week’s disastrous clash at the White House. They also fast-tracked efforts to improve their own defense capabilities in the wake of the falling out and Trump’s direct outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
Their hope is that the campaign, which coalesced on Sunday inside the gilded Victorian halls of Lancaster House, would persuade Trump to stay engaged with Europe and Ukraine before his peace talks with Putin advance further. Macron told Le Figaro newspaper after the gathering that some nations wanted a one-month truce in Ukraine so negotiations on peacekeeping deployments can play out. A British official said there hasn’t been any agreement on a timeline for a ceasefire.
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