Last weekend, leaders from France, Ukraine and the United States met in Paris. While the gathering’s primary purpose was to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame—newly restored after the 2019 fire that destroyed large parts of the cathedral—it also offered the opportunity for diplomacy. In particular, the three leaders talked over the next phase of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seemed to come away from the meeting buoyed.
Zelenskyy noted that they had “discussed important issues on the battlefield and in the global situation, from our frontlines to North Korea,” before adding, “We count on America and the entire world to help stop Putin. The only things he fears are America and global unity.”
Zelenskyy’s remarks are not surprising, as he has long made clear that U.S. support to Ukraine is critical to its war effort. What was surprising about the meeting was that the U.S. leader in attendance was not current President Joe Biden, who is rushing the last deliveries of authorized U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Nor was it one of his top foreign policy officials, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken.