The image is there. Emmanuel Macron, surrounded by Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, serious faces after a short handshake, in the golden salon of the Elysée. The three-way meeting, hoped for by the Head of State for several days, took place on Saturday December 7. The meeting lasted thirty-five minutes. As they left the palace, the three leaders greeted each other, looking a little more relaxed – Mr. Trump tapping Mr. Zelensky on the forearm when shaking his hand – before disappearing to join the reopening ceremonies of Notre-Dame de Paris.
The meeting was only agreed at the last minute, in the heat of the moment, so to speak. Arriving forty-three minutes late, Donald Trump first spoke one-on-one with Emmanuel Macron, before finally accepting the three-way meeting that the Elysée had been offering him for a few days. Then they together welcomed the Ukrainian head of state, who came especially to plead his cause and that of his country to the American president-elect.
During the American electoral campaign, he prided himself on finding a way out of the war started by Russia in “twenty-four hours”while its vice-president, J. D. Vance, intends to reduce American military support, to force kyiv to negotiate with Moscow. The Biden administration, on the contrary, announced on Saturday new military aid to Ukraine estimated at $988 million (around 934 million euros), in the form of drones, missiles for its rocket launcher systems Himars and increased assistance for the maintenance of delivered equipment. She is striving to accelerate her efforts towards kyiv before Donald Trump arrives at the White House on January 20, 2025.
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An “important meeting”, according to Zelensky
Apart from the symbol and the diplomatic coup achieved by Emmanuel Macron, nothing has filtered out on the content of the interviews, apart from a few terse messages. Volodymyr Zelensky described, on “good and productive”. He has “thanked” President-elect Trump whom he judged “as always, resolved.” The Ukrainian president believes that “We all want this war to end as soon as possible and in a fair way” and that “peace through strength is possible”. He also thanked the French president for organizing this “important meeting”.
Donald Trump made no comment before Sunday morning: he then said that the Ukrainian leader and his country “would like to make a deal and end the madness.” “They ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin”he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
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