EU leaders are expected to ask Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to moderate his rhetoric against US President Donald Trump amid Kyiv’s widening rift with Washington, the Financial Times reported.
Zelenskyy and Trump have engaged in a war of words this week, with the former defying Washington’s directive to stop striking Russian refineries and accusing Trump of “loving” autocrats: “It might be true,” a European official said. “But it doesn’t always need to be said out loud.”
The EU is concerned such diatribes could further destabilize the fragile transatlantic relationship. Still, past reconciliations with Washington have proven largely futile for Kyiv, a former US diplomat argued: Zelenskyy “flattered and thanked Trump, agreed to all his crazy ideas... and still got screwed.”
— Brendan Ruberry