Europe intends to remain fully alongside Ukraine even when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States. To discuss future steps, Volodymyr Zelensky will be in Brussels for a meeting organized by the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte.
The Ukrainian president is expected to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Polish President Andrzej Duda, President of the European Council António Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (or his emissary) and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni could also be at the meeting.
The meeting
The details of the meeting are not yet clear, everything was kept very confidential, even if several news agencies had anticipated plans to organize the meeting to be held in Rutte’s residence and not in the NATO headquarters. “The Secretary General will meet President Zelensky on Wednesday. Other European leaders are in Brussels for a European summit and some of them will join them to discuss support for Ukraine, particularly in terms of anti-aircraft defense,” he simply explained an Alliance official today (Monday 16 December).
“It will not be a meeting with concrete decisions, but more political to discuss the coming weeks and months,” a source familiar with the event told Reuters. The meeting will be held on the day the leaders were already due to gather in the European capital for the summit between the EU and the Western Balkans and includes a joint meeting and several bilateral meetings with Zelensky.
Donald Trump has made it clear that under his administration there will be a disengagement in Ukraine and the Republican has promised to be able to bring peace in a single day. The election campaign promise obviously cannot be kept, but it is clear that the Republican will push forcefully for peace to be reached as soon as possible, with the hope of convincing Ukraine to give in to the request to sit at the table, which so far neither Zelensky nor Vladimir Putin has wanted to do it. And Kiev fears being forced to negotiate an agreement that does not take into account its requests in terms of sovereignty and security guarantees.
Continue to arm the country
This is why in Europe various governments are pushing to continue arming the country, and indeed increase support, with the hope that it can achieve some victories on the field that can at least allow us to negotiate from a position of greater strength with Moscow. President Joe Biden himself is significantly increasing the shipment of armaments to Kiev, in a race against time in view of Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.
In the latest show of support for Ukraine, the Biden administration announced a $500 million aid package on Thursday that would include equipment from the US military’s stockpile. A senior administration official told CNN that Washington is doing its utmost to get the announced weapons into Kiev’s hands before Biden leaves office. The push is in stark contrast to that of the incoming Trump administration, with the Republican sharply criticizing the recent US move to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia.
Troops in Ukraine
During the meeting on Saturday 7 December in Paris with Macron and Zelensky, organized by the Frenchman on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame, Trump confirmed the United States’ opposition to Ukraine’s entry into NATO and warned European countries that they will be the ones who will have to provide the nation with military support and security guarantees in the event of a ceasefire. And Macron has already spoken about the possibility of sending troops to the country to maintain peace with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a meeting last week in Warsaw.
France and Poland consider sending troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire
And now the two countries are trying to broaden the “front of the willing” willing to continue helping Ukraine, so that it is in a strong position before any negotiations. But getting to negotiations won’t be that simple. “There must be peace to be able to send peacekeepers, and Russia does not want peace,” underlined the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas.
