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SOURCE: POLITICO -AUTHOR:MJ. GDNUS
The plan is to play along with Trump’s peace efforts until he realizes that Putin is not serious about ending the war.
European leaders do not believe that Vladimir Putin is sincere about a peace deal – so their strategy is to flatter and praise Donald Trump until he comes to the same conclusion and realizes that he will have to be tougher on the Kremlin.
The European side sees it as a winning combination. They would be delighted to be proven wrong if the US president manages to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine with serious security guarantees, but the main plan is to call the Russian leader’s bluff and lobby for tougher sanctions.
French President Emmanuel Macron, the world leader who has tried the hardest to prevent a war in Ukraine through diplomatic contacts with Putin, is now the most vocal in claiming that the Russian president is not serious about peace and that he is still committed to his goal of destroying an independent, democratic Ukraine.
“Do I think President Putin wants peace? The answer is no. If you want my deepest conviction: no. Do I think President Trump wants peace? Yes,” Macron said before departing for Washington, where he joined the talks on Monday. “I don’t think President Putin wants peace. I think he wants the capitulation of Ukraine. That’s what he proposed.”
Rather than offering any concessions for a peace deal, Putin is simply demanding more territory from Kiev, including key defensive lines that would allow him to strike deeper into the country. He is also categorically rejecting the presence of NATO forces that would guarantee the country’s security after the war — a key issue for Kiev.
As preparations now begin for a possible summit between Russia and Ukraine, leaders across Europe held a series of emergency talks on Tuesday to assess their response and share information from discussions at the White House the day before.
According to five diplomats, who were granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive discussions, presidents, prime ministers and ambassadors largely aligned with Macron. They expressed deep skepticism that the Kremlin would negotiate in good faith – but were optimistic that Washington would punish Russia if Putin proved to be the biggest obstacle to peace.
“It is clear that if we end up in a situation where it turns out that Putin does not want to end the war, that will force Trump to react and strengthen the case for sanctions,” said one diplomat from a country represented at a virtual European Council meeting on Tuesday.
Europeans see American pressure through sanctions as crucial in the diplomatic process, and many argue that Putin was forced to engage with Trump on Alaska only after Washington imposed high tariffs on India for its purchases of Russian oil – Moscow’s economic lifeblood. A dramatic next step would be an escalation of similar sanctions to choke off Russia’s crucial trade with China.
Another diplomat confirmed that allies were happy to support the US initiative to broker a ceasefire, not because they think it will necessarily succeed, but “because it will be a clear test of Russian intentions.” A third said that the security guarantees in the works would help Ukraine “negotiate from a position of strength,” while sanctions would ensure that “we have leverage to put pressure on Putin.”
Leaders including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, France’s Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni traveled to Washington on Monday to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his meeting with Trump. This came just days after the US leader hosted Putin for talks in Alaska and claimed progress had been made on “many points.”
“This is a constant exercise in managing Trump for everyone — including Putin, by the way,” Fiona Hill, a former adviser to the Republican during his first term as president and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told POLITICO.
“But I think they did the best job they could have done on Monday.” The best that could be hoped for from the Alaska summit, she said, was “something to work with – and it looks like it was something, even though it was visually disastrous.”
Trump is getting to his head…
Western partners showered Trump with praise – thanking him for hosting the talks – and expressed genuine relief after he appeared to give serious assurances that the country would play a role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace deal. Behind closed doors, however, their focus is more on pushing for new, tough economic sanctions if and when Moscow refuses to end the invasion.
“Everyone is just doing their job,” said a fourth EU diplomat. “But we don’t know what Putin’s ultimate goal is. What will motivate Putin to make any concessions? I don’t know.”
The pressure to talk peace is becoming a problem for the Russian leader.
The Kremlin’s response to the next round of diplomacy was evasive. Procrastinating, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was not ruling out talks with Ukraine – but insisted that any summit must be prepared “step by step, gradually, starting from the expert level and going through all the necessary stages”. Putin even rather impractically suggested a summit in Russia – an idea that was immediately rejected.
One German official said the hesitation was becoming a serious test of Russian seriousness.
“Russia has agreed to host or participate in a bilateral summit with Zelensky … In the meantime, I understand from the media … that the Russian side is now interpreting it differently,” the official said.
On the European side, diplomacy is now moving at a rapid pace. The EU held an emergency meeting of ambassadors until 2am on Tuesday, ahead of the leaders’ talks and a special video conference with an informal “coalition of the willing”, which also includes non-EU countries such as Turkey and Canada. This comes as military chiefs are expected to meet in Washington this week to discuss concrete security guarantees for Ukraine.
EU defense and foreign ministers will also meet informally next week as expectations grow that a concrete peace proposal could be ready to present to Zelensky and Putin in about a week.
Trump has suggested that US air power could be used in Ukraine, while European countries could deploy troops to protect the country – a move that would run counter to Russian ambitions to seize more territory.
But as Western countries have grown more confident that they can work with Trump and maintain a united front, they have also been forced to adjust their red lines to him. After the talks in Washington, the EU appeared on Monday to soften its demand that Russia accept a ceasefire before talks could begin.
“There was hope that Trump might change his mind on the ceasefire issue. That hasn’t happened,” said a fifth diplomat, expressing concern about the differences in positions. “But overall, it was still a good step towards peace.”
Most importantly, however, even Trump himself is now publicly acknowledging that Putin may not be negotiating in good faith.
“We’ll find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It’s possible he doesn’t want to make a deal,” the US president told Fox News.
“I hope President Putin is good, and if he’s not, it’s going to be a bad situation.”
