French President Emmanuel Macron's informal emergency meeting Monday in Paris with the leaders of Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, and NATO’s secretary general and EU figures - is a scramble prompted by Europe and Ukraine being cut out of Saudi-hosted negotiations between the US and Russia to end the three-year long Ukraine war.
President Zelensky in desperation is meanwhile urging for Europe to swiftly nominate a representative for the negotiations, one of his top advisers was cite in a fresh Bloomberg report as saying.
"It should be a quickly made decision," Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of Zelenskiy’s office, said. "I hope right after the Paris meeting. We should act, not reflect."
The US-Russia talks are expected to begin Tuesday, likely making any effort to insert a top European official into the mix to represent Kiev's perspective too-little, too late.
Hungary has of course been a rare European voice of dissent this whole time, firmly standing in Trump's corner in efforts to achieve a rapid peace.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is Kazakhstan Monday, where he suggested the emergency Paris summit is really about thwarting peace and prolonging the war by a bunch of 'warmongers'.
Szijjarto's comments were picked up and translated by Russia's RT. He said of the conference called by Macron as Europe scrambles to get a voice...
"We trust that the American-Russian negotiations will be successful, and we hope that this will lead to peace in Ukraine as soon as possible… However, we must also see that in Europe, those who do not want peace are organizing," he said.
"Those who have been constantly adding fuel to the fire for the past three years are gathering in Paris today," Szijjarto added, characterizing the participants as "war-mongering countries that have followed a misguided strategy."
Indeed, speaking of which, tiny NATO country Denmark has really been hyping the possibilities of late:
If Moscow perceives NATO as weak, Russia could be ready to wage a "large-scale war" in Europe within five years, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) has said.
"Russia is likely to be more willing to use military force in a regional war against one or more European NATO countries if it perceives NATO as militarily weakened or politically divided," states the report, which was released Tuesday.
"This is particularly true if Russia assesses that the U.S. cannot or will not support the European NATO countries in a war with Russia," it continues, emphasizing that Russia is ramping up its military capabilities to prepare for a possible war against NATO.
And on Monday Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen followed this by saying Denmark and European allies must ramp up military preparedness, and claimed there are no signs that Moscow actually wants peace.
Von der Leyen on Monday: "We need a surge in defense in Europe."
Today in Paris we reaffirmed that Ukraine deserves peace through strength.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 17, 2025
Peace respectful of its independance, sovereignty, territorial integrity, with strong security guarantees.
Europe carries its full share of the military assistance to Ukraine.
At the same time we need… pic.twitter.com/xdAnkeWr4v
All of this is also happening under lingering Trump threats, past and present, that if NATO allies don't pay there way they'll be left on their own. Trump even said in 2024 that he might "encourage" Russia to attack any NATO member country which fails to meet its defense spending obligations.