by InTrieste
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is in Washington today for high-stakes talks at the White House, where President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is meeting President Donald J. Trump alongside a slate of European leaders.
The gathering — which also includes France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Britain’s Keir Starmer, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — is being billed as an extraordinary show of unity by Europe amid fears that Mr. Trump could push for a peace deal seen as overly favorable to Moscow.
For Ms. Meloni, who has cast herself as a steadfast supporter of Kyiv within Europe, the summit is a test of her ability to balance loyalty to the transatlantic alliance with growing unease over Mr. Trump’s overtures to Vladimir V. Putin. Ahead of the meeting, she joined Mr. Zelensky in insisting that no agreement on Ukraine’s future can be made without Kyiv at the table — a message directed squarely at Washington as it weighs its next move in the conflict.
