Zelenskyy travels to Paris for talks with President Macron and Chancellor Scholz

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to visit Paris on Wednesday evening and hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

German government officials said Scholz was traveling to Paris for the trilateral meeting in the French capital.

German broadcaster ntv was the first to report on Scholz’s trip.

Macron and Scholz have previously visited Kyiv in June 2022 – their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since the start of the Russian invasion four months earlier.

London and Brussels also on the program

The Ukrainian president was in the UK on Wednesday morning. He spoke to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Downing Street, gave a rousing speech to parliamentarians in Westminster and met King Charles III at Buckingham Palace.

On Thursday, Zelensky is also expected to travel to Brussels as European leaders gather for a summit.

A senior EU official told Euronews that Zelenskyy’s trip to the Belgian capital is likely to begin with an address to an extraordinary plenary session of the European Parliament.

He could then join EU leaders meeting for a special summit to discuss migration, the bloc’s response to the US Cut Inflation Act and support for Ukraine, including through of a tenth round of sanctions against Russia.

Zelenskyy has joined these summits virtually several times since the start of the war to brief leaders on the situation on the ground, but has yet to attend them in person.

This would come a week after EU commissioners traveled to Kyiv for meetings with the Ukrainian government, followed by an EU-Ukraine summit on Friday attended by Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michael.

They then said that “there is an open invitation for President Zelenskyy to visit Brussels” to which the Ukrainian leader replied: “I really want to travel but there is a very significant risk because of the attempt of revenge of Russia”.

A trip to London and Brussels would be just Zelenskyy’s second known trip outside the country since the Russian invasion began on February 24 last year.

He traveled to Washington in late December to deliver a speech to Congress and hold a meeting with US President Joe Biden.