Nick Schifrin:
Zelenskyy spoke to Baltic leaders this afternoon.
And a senior European official who was on that call told me that Zelenskyy sounded contrite about what had happened on Friday, and that he understood he needed to mend the relationship with Donald Trump. From the Western, European perspective, we heard why in our story right there from Prime Minister Starmer, that European troops could not deploy into Ukraine without U.S. support, intelligence, and logistics.
The U.S. officials who are in favor of maintaining support for Ukraine had hoped that that economic deal would be signed on Friday as a way to convince the skeptical President Trump not only to continue support for Ukraine, but even invest in Ukraine’s drone industry, which, as we said, is super important.
So whether he’s willing to do that, whether, frankly, President Trump is willing to keep the same number of U.S. troops in Europe, well, all of that tonight, Geoff, lies in the balance.