MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. US President-elect Donald Trump did not have a private meeting with Vladimir Zelensky in Paris, political scientist Mikhail Pavliv told TASS.
According to Bloomberg, during talks with Trump in Paris, Zelensky demanded that the US invite Ukraine to NATO before the end of the conflict with Russia. "The meeting between Zelensky, [French President Emmanuel] Macron, and Trump took place. It didn't even last the expected half hour. The rumors about a one-on-one between Trump and Zelensky turned out to be false. The meeting lasted about ten minutes or less. Trump barely spoke. It was Zelensky who spoke, once again explaining how to conduct talks with Russia from a position of strength in order to force Moscow to engage in the peace process. We don't know if Trump understood Zelensky at all, he just said some general phrases about the need to end this war," the expert said, citing his sources.
Pavliv added that Macron had suggested issuing a joint communique or a press approach, but Trump refused, and later Zelensky did the same. "What Trump expressed the next day was actually not based on Zelensky's words, but probably on the promises that [Zelensky’s head of office] Andrey Yermak made to US Vice-President-elect JD Vance. And Zelensky's refusal, in my opinion, is not due to the elections, but to what may happen after the elections," he pointed out.
The expert emphasized that it was no coincidence that Yermak headed to London afterward. "The Chatham House roundtable definitely wasn’t the reason for that. They organized certain events so that Yermak could get some money. There was a meeting with [UK] National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, where Yermak told him all about his talks in the US. And, as far as I know, the Brits are preparing their own strategy in Ukraine in connection with the elections and a potential halt in the hostilities," Pavliv concluded.