Kyiv, 17 August

European and NATO leaders will join Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his crucial meeting with President Donald Trump, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.

The move in relation to the key White House meeting on Monday is an apparent effort to prevent a repeat of the heated encounter Zelenskyy faced when he met Trump in the Oval Office in February.

The European leaders' presence at Zelenskyy's side, demonstrating Europe's support for Ukraine, could potentially help ease concerns in Kyiv and in other European capitals that Zelenskyy risks being railroaded into a peace deal that Trump says he wants to broker with Russia.

Von der Leyen, head of the European Union's executive branch, posted on X that “at the request of President Zelenskyy, I will join the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House tomorrow.”

In a quick succession on Sunday, a stream of European leaders also announced that they'll be going. They included French President Emmanuel Macron, the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, and the Secretary General of the NATO military alliance, Mark Rutte.

The grouped trip underscored European leaders' determination to ensure that Europe has a voice in Trump's attempted peace-making, after the US president's summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin — to which Zelenskyy wasn't invited.