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Bloomberg
Despite finding himself in the eye of Donald Trump’s impeachment storm, Ukraine’s leader is set for an even tougher test of his fledgling presidency: his first face time with Vladimir Putin.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets his Russian counterpart in Paris as he seeks progress towards resolving the war in eastern Ukraine that erupted after Russia annexed Crimea from its neighbor in 2014. The presence of France’s Emmanuel Macron, keen to bring Putin in from the cold, and Germany’s Angela Merkel adds heft to the push for peace.
Ending the violence in the Donbas region, where more than 13,000 lives have been lost, was a key election pledge by Zelenskiy, who got a boost heading into the negotiations in the form of new International Monetary Fund aid.
But Putin is bristling at Ukraine’s aspirations to join the European Union and NATO.
And that’s the bind that Zelenskiy finds himself in. Ukrainians, tired of playing a central role in the US impeachment drama surrounding Trump and worried about it distracting their government, overwhelmingly want the war to be over. But at the same time, they’re concerned their president will cede too much ground to Putin.
They’ll be watching Zelenskiy’s every move in France.