European leaders want to avoid a repeat of previous Trump-Zelensky meeting

Things may have changed since the early weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, when he called Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” and someone who was risking “World War Three”.

But his latest remark seemingly puts the onus on the Ukrainian leader to end the war.

He did not put a similar spotlight on Russian President Vladimir Putin – who’s responsible for repeated aggressions against Ukraine – ahead of their recent Alaska summit.

The tone will concern Ukraine’s European allies, even if they’ll likely not challenge this directly.

Key European leaders will be in Washington to support Zelensky today, having their own meeting with the US president later.

They will want to avoid a repeat of the spiky encounter between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office in February – which many saw as a hatchet job on the Ukrainian leader.