Saturday March 1, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS (from VICTORIA, BC) | Posted at 7 pm PT
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
ALSO SEE: European ‘Securing the Future’ summit includes Canada (March 2, 2025) – Trudeau to meet with King Charles on March 3.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in London, England this weekend to attend the Securing the Future Summit on Sunday, March 2.
Trudeau received a last-minute invitation to what was originally only for European leaders. Trudeau will be part of the ‘family photo’ (i.e. the world leaders who attend the summit).
Trudeau’s presence at tomorrow’s meeting is clearly a sign that Canada (a long time member of the NATO alliance) is being included in the European loop. He is the only non-European leader at the meeting.
Canada may end up sending peacekeeping troops to Europe.
Trudeau will meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tomorrow in London.
Trudeau is Canada’s prime minister up to March 9, after which the new Liberal Party Leader will be Canada’s prime minister.
Ever since his visit to Trump’s estate at the end of November 2024, Trudeau has been taunted by Trump as being the ‘governor of the 51st state’. This threat to sovereignty of a nation has been a wakeup call for other countries as well (e.g. Greenland and Panama, and now Ukraine) where Trump wants economic control if not more.
Zelenskyy in London:
Zelenskyy was given a warm welcome from people on the streets of London, gathered along roadsides with signs of support and Ukrainian flags.
It was obviously intended as a supportive response following how Zelenskyy was treated with disrespect by US President Trump yesterday in Washington, DC.
The Washington meetings:
After meetings held by President Trump through last week with France’s president Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s prime minister Starmer, and then Zelenskyy, it appears Europe is seeing an escalated need to support Ukraine possibly entirely without US support.
Neither Macron nor Starmer would weigh in on the 51st-state drama during their press conferences in Washington this past week, but their meetings with Trump were otherwise friendly.
However, Zelenskyy was sent packing without a security agreement after a highly intense televised interaction in the Oval Office.
It’s quite possible yesterday’s verbal attack on Zelenskyy was intentional because Trump doesn’t really want to continue funding Ukraine unless he can control rare earth mining and other economic aspects of Ukraine And given Trump’s politics, he needed to still appear to Russian President Putin that he is on Russia’s side.
These developments clearly contributed to tomorrow’s hastily called European leaders meeting.
UK loan to Ukraine:
Zelenskyy met with British Premier Keir Starmer today for what is reported as a positive, supportive meeting.
UK’s finance minister was on hand to sign a loan document with Zelenskyy. The amount is £2.26B (approximately $4B Canadian) to be used for military supplies in the event that the US does not continue their military support.
Ukraine will be allowed to pay that back using the profits from frozen Russian assets.
===== RELATED:
- European ‘Securing the Future’ summit includes Canada (March 2, 2025)
- Trump & Vance dress down Zelenskyy in the Oval Office (February 28, 2025)
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