Italian leader Giorgia Meloni has called for Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky to get back to the negotiating table to “avoid the risk that the West divides over Ukraine,” after the Ukrainian President was booted from the White House following a fiery shouting match with the president and Vice President JD Vance.
Zelensky huddled with key European allies for an emergency summit on Sunday. He was given a hero’s welcome in London as leaders discussed a path for peace amid Russia’s invasion and how to patch things up with the US after the clash Friday.
Some European leaders have publicly pushed for Trump and Zelensky to mend fences.
“It’s very, very important that we avoid the risk that the West divides over Ukraine,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has courted close ties with Trump, said, per a translation.
Meloni, the sole European leader to attend Trump’s inauguration, spoke with Trump on the phone ahead of the London security summit and publicly called for an emergency meeting with the US to smooth things over.
“It is important to maintain unity around Ukraine and strengthen our country’s position in cooperation with our allies – the countries of Europe and the United States,” Zelensky said following his meeting with Meloni.
“Ukraine needs peace backed by robust security guarantees.”
“Clearly, there’s a lot of tension. The cameras were on — nobody wants to see that. My driving purpose has been to bridge this,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who spoke with Trump after the spat, told the BBC.
“We’ve now agreed that the United Kingdom, along with France and possibly one or two others, will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting, and then we’ll discuss that plan with the United States.”
Later in the day, Zelensky is poised to meet with King Charles.
European leaders have been rallying around Zelensky, while many of them have carefully refrained from being too adversarial toward Trump following the explosive encounter in the Oval Office on Friday.
Since Friday, Zelensky has blasted out a blitz of thank yous to European countries and other partners for their assistance after getting beraded by Vance for not expressing more gratitude toward the US.
He’s also turned to Europe’s guidance amid bitterly strained relations with the US, which has been Ukraine’s largest foreign provider of lethal military aid.
“Those European leaders are talking to him directly about getting to the negotiation table,” national security adviser Mike Waltz reflected to CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “[About] what does he need to see to actually negotiate and negotiate with the Russians.”
“What was so stunning to all of us in the Oval Office was that it was not clear Zelensky was going to go to negotiate at all.”
Zelensky had arrived at the White House on Friday, expected to sign a mineral rights agreement with the US as part of the Trump administration’s push to get negotiations going to end the war in Ukraine.
But Zelensky pushed back on a number of assertions from Trump and Vance during their sit-down in the Oval Office in front.
Roughly 40 minutes in, Zelensky hit back at Vance’s insistence that Ukraine needed to engage in diplomacy with Russia by reminding the VP that Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin has a history of breaking agreements and lying.
That triggered the stunning shouting match between Zelensky, Trump and Vance.
Zelensky has insisted that Ukraine must receive security guarantees as part of any deal for a ceasefire or other arrangement to end the war.
In the public eye, he’s been short on specifics of what the security guarantees would entail. The Trump administration has suggested that the onus is more on Europe to provide those guarantees.
“They were talking about European boots on the ground, security guarantees for Ukraine, a positive movement towards ending this war and Ukraine and the United States, being bound together for a generation economically,” Waltz told “State of the Union.”
Some European leaders have indicated a desire to step up.
“Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” European Union foreign minister Kaja Kallas said after the blow-up in the Oval Office Friday.
Estimates for US spending on Ukraine vary. The Kiel Institute pegs it at roughly $119.7 billion, while the Defense Department says roughly $182.8 billion. Europe as a whole has spent $138.7 billion, per the Kiel Institute.
For decades, European countries have long lagged behind the US in terms of their investments in their militaries, a longstanding grievance of Trump.
