According to the Elysee, Macron spoke by phone with Zelensky, without offering details of what was discussed.

However, the French president wrote in X after the exchange of views that in the war “there is an aggressor: Russia and an attacked people: Ukraine.”

We have been right to help Ukraine and to sanction Russia for three years, and we continue to do so, he stressed. In his first meeting with Trump, Zelensky and his host had a verbal confrontation in front of the cameras, in which the head of the White House accused him of “playing with the Third World War”, of losing the conflict and of having no room to negotiate.

Macron, who is visiting Portugal, told local media following the tense meeting that “the one who plays with the Third World War is called Vladimir Putin”.

Other European leaders also expressed their support for Ukraine and Zelensky, including the prime ministers of France, François Bayrou; the Netherlands, Dick Schoof; and Denmark, Mette Frederiksen; the incoming and outgoing chancellors of Germany, Friedrich Merz and Olaf Scholz, respectively, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

Trump’s arrival at the White House, just over a month ago, represented a break with the anti-Russian stance of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and the beginning of a direct approach with Putin to end the war, and take advantage of the eventual peace with the US control of strategic resources on Ukrainian soil.

This change has caused a standoff between the United States and the European Union, with security and economic issues in the background.

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