European leaders back Zelensky after Trump clash | BBC News (youtube.com)
Yeah, that conference strikes me as something that Europeans wouldn't appreciate much.
‘Zelensky has shown himself to be not only a hero, but to be someone who does the best for his people and his country. And if that means making up with Trump in order to get the support he needs, he will do it, however unlikely that is at the moment.’ Benjamin Tallis.
It showed that Ukraine is not willing to sell out for a peace at any price, it wasn't willing to Russia and it's not going to do that with Trump's US, he said.
‘I hope all the European leaders watching this know it could have been them. This is a fickle president and an impetuous president who is basically only looking out for number one.’ Talk of what Europe can do without US, which would be better for Europe to be strong, he said.
‘A produced moment.’ ‘Premeditated.’
‘The intervention of JD Vance in this was is, to be frank, highly irregular.’ ‘Without the explicit, predetermined permission of his boss.’ ‘Embassador for the bad cop side of the administration.’ Reminds me a little of the VP at my high school.
Zelensky showed he had fortitude, and that Ukraine was not going to just do anything anyone asks in order to get US support. What the US has done and what Trump has said is that ‘You are now at a weakened negotiating position. You are not in a position to ask for concessions in any kind of ceasefire. And that seems to indicate that Trump is biasing himself in the peace negotiations on the side of Putin.’
European leaders came out ‘in force’ after the conference to re-affirm their support for Ukraine. ‘It was EU flags that Ukrainians were waving’ at Maidan protests in 2014.
Seems we have the second possible cause New Democrats can take up. Was Trump being responsibly pragmatic, or was it an attempt at a shortcut?
‘Donald Trump started his day confident he was about to sign a very adventageous deal with Ukraine.’ BBC.
'Zelensky knows he needs American backing to fight the war, he needs American support to get what he wants in any peace deal. Right now he's made an enemy of the one man he really needs as an ally.'
Zelensky ‘still thanking America after that extraordinary exchange.’
‘It increasingly feels that this had less to do with a mineral deal. For Zelensky this was about trying to entice America into a deeper level of cooperation, and clearly this proposal wasn't as enticing to Kiev as perhaps the White House was suggesting.'
‘The people you speak to here in Kiev... they were pleased. They thought president Zelensky had no choice.’ Some thought he ‘could have been more tactile in the face of the verbal attack by the president and vice president of the United States, but broadly speaking there’s a rule in Ukraine, there's a pattern. Whenever the country's under threat, be it an invasion or Zelensky himself, it feels a political unity... because the country does not want to appear divided.'
Publicly, the leaders of UK, Canada, France, Poland make statements in support of Ukriane. Hungary's leader Orban and Putin supported Trump after the meeting.