PARIS (Reuters) – France does not understand why U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was to blame for Russia’s invasion of his country and the resulting war, a French government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“We don’t understand the logic very well,” spokesperson Sophie Primas told reporters, describing “the diverse, varied and often incomprehensible comments by President Trump”.
She said Trump had made a number of comments on Ukraine over the past few days without consulting his European allies.
Trump, in comments to reporters on Tuesday, said: “You’ve been there for three years,” referring to concerns that Ukraine had been excluded from talks between Russia and the United States. “You should’ve never started it. You could have made a deal.”
Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two began in 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Ukraine and its allies in Europe were stunned by the decision by Washington and Moscow to hold peace talks in Saudi Arabia this week. Ukraine has said it will not accept a deal imposed on it without its consent, which European leaders have echoed, while Russia has ruled out conceding land it has won.
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to have an informal meeting on Ukraine with some European leaders and NATO ally Canada at 4 p.m. (1500 GMT), following a similar meeting with Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain, the EU, Denmark and the Netherlands on Monday.
Ahead of Wednesday’s talks, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that, while there was not complete agreement in the European Union on how to move forward, countries had nevertheless managed to accomplish a lot within the EU framework. He said it was important for backers of Ukraine to do everything possible to put Kyiv in a strong position.
Sounding a note of caution, he added:
“Everyone seems to believe that Russia wants to negotiate peace. I don’t feel sure at all on that point. So we need to keep a cool head and continue to support Ukraine.”
(Reporting by Michel Rose and Makini Brice in Paris; Additional reporting by Simon Johnson in Stockholm; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Gabriel Stargardter and Helen Popper)
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