Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why aren't these leaders willing to properly help Zelenskyy?

So if anything, tonight's meeting at the White House is actually more important than Saturday's meeting was in Alaska - because this is the meeting with Zelenskyy.

This is the meeting where the guy who has been invaded has to spell out how much land he is prepared to give up to Putin. And that is a lot harder than what happened in Alaska, which was just Putin laying down his dream scenario.

And you can see that the European leaders realize that this is more important, because they're coming with Zelenskyy.

You've got Keir Starmer of the UK, Emmanuel Macron of France, Friedrich Merz of Germany and a whole bunch of others - and they're going to be Zelenskyy's hype squad at the White House to try to stop Trump bullying him, which is actually fair enough after what happened last time.

But I have to be honest, I find Europe endlessly frustrating over Ukraine.

I mean, here they are dropping everything to rush over to Washington with Zelenskyy, to presumably stop Trump from taking too much of Ukraine's land away from them. But where was this haste in dropping everything and helping Ukraine to stop Putin taking Ukraine's land away from them?

These European guys have absolutely supplied weapons, but the spend, when you look at it, has actually been tiny. I mean, they make such a song and dance about the fact that Ukraine has to hold the line otherwise Putin will come for them next.

But then they hardly actually help Ukraine to hold the line. For a war that threatens them, Germany has put in less than 0.2 percent of GDP. The UK, much the same. France, less than 0.1 percent of GDP.

And a few weeks ago, you'll remember they had the idea of putting European boots on the ground in Ukraine. They formed the Coalition of the Willing and it was all go - and then it never happened. No boots ever arrived.

Now, those boots might actually have been helpful to Ukraine in being able to fight Putin off. 

And so it is somewhat rich that these leaders who are not prepared to actually really help Zelenskyy hold the line against Putin now suddenly want to help him hold the line against Trump.

I mean, they are probably right, Putin probably does want Ukraine and then more afterwards, and forcing Zelenskyy to give up land only delays the problem and doesn't solve it, because Putin will just come for more later on.

But what other option does Zelenskyy have right now? Because he cannot keep fighting like this if Europe won't actually help him fight, other than just giving him a few nice words in a hype squad.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, if anything, tonight's meeting at the White House is
actually more important than Saturday's meeting was in Alaska, because
this is the meeting with Zelensky, right, this is the
meeting with a guy who has been invaded has to
spell out how much land he is prepared to give
up to Putin. And that is a lot harder than
what happened in Alaska, which was just Putin laying down
his dream scenario. And you can see that the European

(00:21):
leaders realize that this is important and is more important
because they're coming with Zelensky. You've got Keir Starmer of
the uk Amnual macronof France, Frederick Merse of Germany, a
whole bunch of others, and they're going to be Zelenzi's
Zelensky's hype squad at the White House to try to
stop Trump bullying him, which is actually fair enough after
what happened last time. But I have to be honest,
I find Europe endlessly frustrating over Ukraine. I mean, here

(00:44):
they are dropping everything to rush over to Washington with
Zelensky to presumably stop Trump from taking too much of
Ukraine's land away from them. But where was this haste
in dropping everything and helping Ukraine to stop Putin taking
Ukraine's land away from them. These guys have, the European
guys have absolutely supplied weapons, but the spin when you
look at it, has actually been tiny. I mean, they

(01:05):
make such a song and dance to the fact that
Ukraine has to hold the line otherwise Putin will come
for them next. But then they hardly actually help Ukraine
to hold the line for a war that threatens them.
Germany has put in less than zero point two percent
of GDP, the UK much the same, France less than
zero point one percent of GDP. I mean, a few
weeks ago, you'll remember they had the idea of putting
European boots on the ground in Ukraine. They formed the

(01:27):
Coalition of the Willing, and it was all go, and
then it never happened. No boots ever arrived. Now, those
boots might actually have been helpful to Ukraine in being
able to fight Putin off. And so it is somewhat
rich that these leaders who are not prepared to actually
really help Zelenski hold the line against Putin, now suddenly
they want to help them hold the line against Trump.
I mean, they are probably right Putin probably does want

(01:48):
Ukraine and then more afterwards, and forcing Zelenski to give
up Land only delays the problem, doesn't solve it, because
Putin will just come from more later on. But what
other option does Zelensky have right now, because he cannot
keep fighting like this if Europe won't actually help him fight,
other than just giving him a few nice words in
hype Squad. For more from Hither Duplessy, Allen Drive listen

(02:10):
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