Trump quarrels with Zelensky, Europe distances itself from the U.S. What you need to know

In the week that has passed since the Munich conference, which stunned all participants, international politics has changed its vector dramatically: the United States and Russia have begun to converge their positions, the European Union has remained alone in its support for Ukraine, and Kiev itself is trying to find the ground that is falling away from under its feet. What happened and why it is important - in the material of "Izvestia".

European aid to Ukraine

- On February 17, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted European leaders at an emergency summit devoted to the U.S. attempts to start peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, which, in all likelihood, will take place without the participation of European officials. It was organized just days in advance and took place immediately after the defeated speech of American Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich (we wrote more about what happened at the conference here).

- The leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as NATO chief Mark Rutte, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Paris.

- The discussions followed a phone call last week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, in which the two leaders agreed to begin immediate talks to end the conflict in Ukraine.

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- European leaders, meeting in Paris on Monday for emergency talks, called for more spending to bolster the continent's defense capabilities but disagreed on the idea of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine as part of any peace deal. In fact, the result of the meeting was that it was necessary to help Ukraine, but there was no agreement on how.

- On February 19, an expanded meeting was held. Against the background of the changed US policy towards Kyiv, 20 European countries and Canada confirmed that they would continue to help Ukraine. The heads of state and government of Lithuania, Finland, Cyprus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia and the Czech Republic participated in the meeting via video link. In addition, the meeting was personally attended, in addition to Macron, by interim Romanian President Ilie Bolhogan and Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden.

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- At the same time, European politicians plan to continue dialog with Washington. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will soon visit the United States. The meeting is likely to take place on Monday, February 24. They are expected to present their vision of "security guarantees" for Kiev to Trump, or try to convince him not to get closer to Moscow.

Moscow and Washington talks

- On Feb. 19, U.S. and Russian officials held their first talks in Riyadh on resuming bilateral relations, and ending the conflict in Ukraine was also discussed. Kiev and its European allies have been watching anxiously from the sidelines. All week there have been repeated statements from them that Europe "must be at the negotiating table" and "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine."

- The more than four-hour meeting in Riyadh, attended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is part of a major diplomatic campaign by the United States to end the conflict. U.S. officials called the talks preliminary, necessary to set the stage for a possible face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

- The delegations agreed to create a high-level group to deal with the Ukrainian issue. The two sides also agreed to re-staff their diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow. The deployment of more diplomats is widely agreed to be a non-controversial move.

Trump and Zelensky's altercation

- Zelensky was scheduled to visit Riyadh on February 19 - the day after the Russia-U.S. talks. However, the Ukrainian president chose to publicly cancel his visit.

- A week earlier, Zelensky had twice disrupted the signing of an agreement with the US on mining rare-earth metals in Ukraine. This turned US President Donald Trump against him, who, according to many sources, already disliked the Ukrainian leader.

- A couple days after the meeting in Riyadh, Trump published a post full of criticism of Zelensky. Among other things, he reminded him of the disappearance of part of the money allocated to Kiev and noted that Zelensky's rating in Ukraine is 4%. In response, the Ukrainian leader said that the American head had fallen "under the influence of Russian disinformation."

- US Vice President J.D. Vance warned Zelensky that attacking Trump in public is a "bad way" to interact with the current US administration.

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- The verbal altercation did not end there. Trump accused Ukraine of derailing a rare earth metals deal with the US. According to him, on February 12, the head of the American Ministry of Finance Scott Bessent reached Kiev, but Zelensky, according to Trump, was asleep and unavailable for a meeting. The US president emphasized that he would force Kiev to revisit a possible mining deal in Ukraine, despite Zelensky's position. Later that week, Trump told reporters that he considered Zelensky's presence at the talks "not that important."

Zelensky's meeting with Kellogg

- U.S. presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg arrived in Kiev for a three-day visit on the morning of February 19. On the same day, he was received by the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), General Oleksandr Syrskyy, heads of the Ukrainian security services, as well as the head of the Ukrainian president's office, Andriy Yermak.

- The next day, the American politician met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After the meeting, invited journalists expected the approach of politicians to the press, but it did not take place - was canceled at the last minute on the initiative of the American side.

"G20"

- February 20-21 in Johannesburg was held a meeting of foreign policy chiefs of the G20 countries. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that NATO expansion was to blame for the conflict in Ukraine. At the same time, he noted that the realization that a solution can be found only by eliminating the root causes of the crisis is gradually coming. He specified that a detailed conversation on this topic took place at the Russian-American talks in Riyadh on February 18.

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- The US Secretary of State was absent at the G20 ministerial meeting. Marco Rubio said earlier that he would not go to South Africa, because he considers the policy of this country discriminatory, and the agenda of the G20 ministerial meeting - ideologized. German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock also did not come to South Africa in connection with the upcoming elections to the Bundestag.

- The lack of agreement among the participants of the meeting was also evident in the fact that they refused to take a photo together.

Other signs of change

- Rubio said that sanctions lifting and territorial issues were not discussed at the talks between U.S. and Russian representatives in Riyadh. Later, The New York Times, citing sources, reported that the politician assured European allies that Washington would not lift anti-Russian sanctions unless there were significant changes in Moscow's policy.

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- At the same time, he did not rule out a partial easing of restrictions if Russia begins to take the steps the U.S. administration is seeking. The Secretary of State assured his colleagues that Washington was not planning to impose the terms of any bilateral agreement with Russia on Ukraine and Europe.

- On February 20, it became known that for the first time in three years the USA refused to support the resolution of the G7 countries condemning Russia. Washington also opposed the definition of "aggressor" in relation to Moscow.