The mood in the White House on Monday was strikingly upbeat.
Nato’s ever-cheerful secretary general, Mark Rutte, set the tone as he addressed Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the gathered European leaders. “Let’s make the best out of today,” he said with a smile, before repeatedly thanking the US president for his attention to the war in Ukraine.
That ritual of praise and gratitude continued throughout the day, as Zelenskyy and European leaders hailed supposed breakthroughs and spoke of progress on issues that remain far from clear.
Much of what unfolded at the White House looked less like serious planning to end the conflict than a performance for an audience of one: persuading Trump that Russia was the obstacle to peace.
When the US president suggested that Putin was ready for a meeting with Zelenskyy, other leaders quickly echoed the claim until it acquired the ring of truth.
Rutte even told Fox News Putin had agreed to meet Zelenskyy, a claim Moscow has conspicuously declined to confirm, instead saying that any such meeting would need to be “prepared extremely carefully”.
The conversation in Washington soon moved to security guarantees.
European leaders made clear they were prepared to go further than before in pledging protection for Ukraine – from article 5-style mutual defence commitments to talk of a British-backed “reassurance force” under a settlement.
But those ambitious pledges were as much about perception as policy.
Moscow has made clear that Nato troops in Ukraine are a red line, and Putin shows little interest in meeting Zelenskyy. Putin insists Zelensky is not a legitimate leader and has said that any meeting with him would only take place to sign a final peace deal.
Yet European leaders continue to push both ideas, which some observers view as a tactic to make Putin appear the one unwilling to budge.
“Most of their [European] optimistic statements aren’t true beliefs, but meant to influence Trump. Europeans hype up expectations to create a reality in which Putin disappoints,” Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, wrote on X.
“Europeans (hopefully) know that Putin will never agree to Nato troops in Ukraine. They know that Putin doesn’t want to meet Zelenskyy. But they pretend all that is a realistic possibility to make Putin look as bad as he really is, to undermine Putin’s own narratives,” Kluge added.
Putin, who has himself shown little desire to compromise on his maximalist demands, has also tried to frame the other side as the obstacle to peace.
In remarks after his Alaska summit with Trump, the Russian president warned that Kyiv and European capitals should not “throw a wrench in the works” by pursuing back-room dealings that could derail the “agreements” he reached with Trump.
There remains widespread confusion over what exactly Trump proposed and what, if anything, Putin agreed to during the Alaska summit.
Trump’s team has presented Putin’s core concession as agreeing to US and European security guarantees for Ukraine – though even that remains murky.
Moscow is reported to have floated a different idea: that China, Russia’s ally, act as one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s security, reviving a proposal first tabled by Russian negotiators during talks in Turkey in spring 2022.
For now, Europe’s tactic seems to have paid off: Trump has temporarily refrained from attacking Zelenskyy or demanding that Ukraine hand over territory on the spot.
Putin, meanwhile, is being forced to now tread carefully in response to Trump’s push for a Zelenskyy meeting. The Kremlin is expected to intensify pressure on Kyiv to accept Russian terms, framing it as groundwork for talks.
“That way Moscow can deflect claims Putin won’t meet Zelenskyy, while signalling that any talks depend on Kyiv’s willingness to concede,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre.
But Europe’s far-reaching promises, designed in part to draw a reaction from Putin, may prove unrealistic once Ukraine needs clarity about what support it can truly expect.
“Security guarantees come in lots of shapes and sizes. But let’s be clear: there’s not going to be a US or European commitment to go to war with Russia if it reinvades Ukraine,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand, a nonprofit global policy thinktank.
“This conversation is becoming divorced from reality,” Charap added.
