For days, officials across Europe scrambled to hastily planned meetings, hashing out details on frantic calls and hours-long negotiations. But after a tumultuous few weeks, capped off by the Russian president warning that his country was ready for war with Europe, peace in Ukraine appears to be no closer.
Instead, what has seemingly been laid bare is the glaring clash of views underpinning the peace process.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, leaders across Europe have become increasingly vocal about what they see as the imperialist intentions of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In France and Germany, leaders have described Russia as a destabilising power whose sights are also set on the EU and Nato and argued that any Ukraine peace plan needs to take this into account. “Rewarding aggression will only invite more of it,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, recently told reporters.
This view, however, sharply contrasts with that of leaders across the Atlantic – who have treated Putin as though he were any other world leader – rather than one with the seemingly endless appetite and ambition for expansion that he seems to have. Earlier this year, Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, brushed off the suggestion that Russia would take further territory in Europe, saying in a US interview: “I take him at his word in this sense.”
Similarly friendly positions have been voiced by Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, leaving Europe in a depressing routine of trying to “push the Trump pendulum away from Russia,” only to watch it revert back to its “natural position of sympathy for Putin,” as our diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour recently put it.
The result is a sequence of events that is becoming routine: Washington unleashes a “diplomatic cavalry charge” against Ukraine that Kyiv, alongside other European capitals, manages to fend off, as Dmytro Kuleba, the former foreign minister of Ukraine recently pointed out in an opinion piece. But the gains are short-lived: “They stabilise the situation but never actually win the battle. This pattern will, no doubt, persist.”
The recent flurry of diplomatic activity echoed that of August, when Trump rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska. European leaders frantically cleared their schedules to join Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Washington, coming together in a show of solidarity that was later dubbed the “Great European Charm Offensive”.
Throughout all of this frenzied activity, missiles and drones have continued to rain down nightly on Ukraine, making one thing clear. “By night, Putin brutally reminds the world that, for him, war remains the primary tool for achieving ‘peace’,” wrote Kuleba.
This week is shaping up to be a prime example. On Tuesday, days after leaders in Ukraine appeared to have staved off the imposition of a US plan that was heavily tilted in Russia’s favour, Witkoff, accompanied by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, arrived in Moscow.
As European leaders expressed concerns that the Moscow talks would pile pressure on Ukraine to make concessions, Putin claimed Russian forces had taken control of the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine – a claim swiftly denied by Ukraine’s military and Zelenskyy. Soon after Putin made hawkish remarks accusing European governments of being on the “side of war” by seeking to sabotage the peace process. He added: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”
The remarks appeared to be an attempt to drive a wedge between Washington and Europe, said the Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter, Pjotr Sauer. Russia has seemingly been happy to capitalise on this clash of views, pushing for a peace deal as long as it is only on Russia’s terms.
“The Russians see this as a win-win situation,” said Pjotr. Either the peace plan goes ahead, with Russia’s maximalist demands in effect requiring Ukraine’s capitulation, or they’ll “just keep on fighting”.
To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
