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EU leaders travelling to US not to ‘keep Zelensky from being bulled’ — Rubio

"They’re coming here tomorrow because we’ve been working with the Europeans," the US Secretary of State said

WASHINGTON, August 17. /TASS/. The United States believes that the European leaders are coming to Washington not to "keep Vladimir Zelensky from being bullied" into a bad deal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

"This is such a stupid media narrative that they’re coming here tomorrow because Trump is going to bully Zelensky into a bad deal. We’ve been working with these people for weeks, for weeks on this stuff. They’re coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come," Rubio told CBS.

"They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied," Rubio said. "They’re coming here tomorrow because we’ve been working with the Europeans. We talked to them last week. There were meetings in the UK over the previous weekend."

On August 15, a meeting between Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump took place at a military base in Alaska. The rendezvous lasted about three hours: there was a one-on-one discussion in the American leader's limousine on the way to the main venue for the talks and a narrow "three-on-three" meeting. The Russian side was also represented by Presidential aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while the American side was represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.

In a statement to the press following the talks, Putin said that the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict was the main topic of the summit. The Russian leader also called for turning the page in bilateral relations and returning to cooperation, and invited Trump to Moscow. For his part, the US president announced the progress made in the talks, but noted that the parties had not managed to reach agreement.

After returning to Washington, Trump held a phone call with Vladimir Zelensky and later with the leaders of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland, and France, as well as with the NATO secretary general and the European Commission president. Later, Zelensky said that he would travel to Washington on Monday to discuss details of a potential peace deal with Trump. According to The New York Time, Trump also invited the European leaders to join.

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United States Vladimir Zelensky

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