Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that the time has come for the creation of an “armed forces of Europe,” because the U.S. may no longer be counted on to support the continent.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hit back at Americans for meddling in his country’s election after U.S. Vice President JD Vance scolded European leaders over their approach to democracy and met with the leader of a German far-right party.
Forceful speeches from Zelenskyy and Scholz on Day 2 of the Munich Security Conference underlined the impact of a blizzard of decisions by U.S. President Donald Trump that show a rapidly growing chasm in trans-Atlantic ties.
European leaders are reeling after Trump’s decision to upend years of U.S. policy by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia on Saturday all but ruled out that Europeans would be included in any Ukraine peace talks.
Ramping up his desire for a more muscular Europe, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s nearly three-year fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion has proved that a foundation exists for the creation of a European army — an idea long discussed among some leaders on the continent.
“I really believe that time has come,” he said. “The armed forces of Europe must be created.”
It’s unclear whether the idea will catch on with European leaders. Zelenskyy has sought greater military and economic support from the European Union for years and repeatedly warned that other parts of Europe could be vulnerable to Russia’s expansionist ambitions.
While the bloc — along with the United States — has been one of Kyiv’s strongest backers, pockets of political disagreement over its approach to Moscow and economic realities, including national debt levels that have crimped defense spending, have stood in the way of greater support.
Zelenskyy also told The Associated Press on Saturday that he “didn’t let” his ministers sign an agreement with the U.S. on the extraction of minerals in the country, because “it is not ready to protect us, our interest.” Ukraine is hoping to offer rare earth elements essential for many kinds of technology in exchange for continued military aid.
Earlier, Zelenskyy alluded to a phone conversation between Trump and Putin this week, after which Trump said that he and Putin would likely meet soon to negotiate a peace deal over Ukraine — breaking with the Biden administration’s harder line against Moscow over Russia’s all-out assault on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department said Saturday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken by phone. Rubio reaffirmed Trump’s “commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Trump previously assured Zelenskyy that he would have a seat at the table to end the war, and the Ukrainian leader insisted that Europe should also have one.
“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement, and the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” Zelenskyy said, adding that “not once did (Trump) mention that America needs Europe at the table.”
“That says a lot,” he said. “The old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.”
Europeans likely excluded from Ukraine peace talks
European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from Washington on issues including democracy and Ukraine’s future, as the Trump administration continues to upend trans-Atlantic conventions that have been in place since after World War II.
Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, all but cut Europeans out of any Ukraine-Russia talks, despite Zelenskyy’s call for Europe to take part.
“You can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking,” Kellogg said at an event hosted by a Ukrainian tycoon. Pressed on whether that meant Europeans won’t be included, he said: “I’m a school of realism. I think that’s not going to happen.”
“We need to ensure Ukrainian sovereignty,” he said, before adding: The “European alliance ... are going to be critical to this.”
At the conference, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, described the new U.S. stance as a “moment of truth” that requires European leaders to overcome their differences and unite for a meaningful peace in Ukraine.
“This is an existential moment. It’s a moment where Europe has to stand up,” she said. “There won’t be any lasting peace, if it’s not a European-agreed peace.”
Iceland’s prime minister, Kristrún Frostadóttir, lamented a lack of clarity from Washington.
“People are still not sure what the U.S. wants to do. And I think it would be good if we came out of this conference if they had a clear picture of it,” she said.
German chancellor hits back at Vance
Earlier, Scholz said that he was “pleased” at what he called a shared commitment with the United States to “preserving the sovereign independence of Ukraine” and agreed with Trump that the Russia-Ukraine war must end.
But Scholz also condemned the new political tack from Washington, affirming his strong stance against the far-right and said his country won’t accept people who “intervene in our democracy.”
A day earlier, Vance chastised Europe’s leaders at the conference and suggested that free speech is “in retreat” across the continent. Vance said that no democracy could survive telling millions of voters that their concerns “are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.” He also met with the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party, which is polling second ahead of Scholz’s own Social Democrats before the Feb. 23 election in Germany.
Alluding to Germany’s Nazi past, Scholz said that the longstanding commitment to “Never Again” — a return to the extreme right — wasn’t reconcilable with support for AfD.
“We will not accept that people who look at Germany from the outside intervene in our democracy and our elections and in the democratic opinion-forming process in the interest of this party,” he said. “That’s just not done, certainly not amongst friends and allies. We resolutely reject this.”
Not all responses from European leaders were negative.
President Karin Keller-Sutter of Switzerland, which isn’t an EU member, was quoted by Swiss daily Le Temps as saying Vance had spoken about “values to defend and that we share, like freedom and the possibility for people to express themselves.”
