Zelenskyy Admits Forcing Scholz to Help Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had forced German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to provide additional military aid to Ukraine.

During talks hosted by France's Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Zelenskyy said: "I must force him (Scholz) to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this help is not for us, but for the Europeans."

On his part, Scholz highlighted that since the Russian military operation began in Ukraine last year, Germany and its partners had backed Ukraine "financially, with humanitarian aid and with weapons".

"We will continue to do so as long as necessary," he told reporters.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s late-night dinner at the Élysée Palace with the leaders of France and Germany as “inappropriate”.

Meloni claimed that the Paris event in hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron undermined European solidarity.

Asked if a joint visit of the French and German finance ministers to Washington, without their Italian counterpart, was appropriate, she said: “What seems to me the most inappropriate was yesterday’s invitation to Zelenskyy.”

“I believe our strength on this issue is our unity,” Meloni added in Brussels where she attended an EU summit with Zelenskyy. “I understand the pressures of internal politics . . . but there are times when catering to one’s own domestic opinion risks detriment to the cause. I think this was one of those cases.”