It’s official: The West is now totally split on Ukraine

A double split waiting to happen: Between Trump and Europe, but also amongst the Europeans themselves. This could get even uglier than we imagined.

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

So, another European summit - and another hmm-yeah-but-no-not-really-but-maybe.

Monday night, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark. (Denmark represented the Baltic and Nordic countries at the meeting). Also present were NATO chief Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President António Costa.

It wasn’t so much a question of whether the Europeans would disagree with Trump’s ‘I-and-Vladimir-will-sort-this-out-on-our-own’ approach. That much was a given after the U.S. President last week wouldn’t say that he sees Ukraine as an equal partner at the negotiations about peace in their own country.

It was more a question of how much the European leaders would disagree with Trump – and of what alternatives they would be able to come up with, meaning how much the Europeans would disagree amongst themselves. It turns out, quite a bit.

Uncle Joe is gone

As long as Joe Biden was in charge, the collective West stuck to ‘for as long as it takes’ and all that. Yes, there were disagreements, mainly on allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles the West had already provided them with to strike military target inside Russia – but not on the end game; Biden was the one who invented the “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” in 2022. And although Biden was never willing to entertain the idea of U.S. ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine, no Western politician has been a stronger supporter of NATO than Joe Biden.

That all changed on November 5 when Donald J. Trump regained the U.S. presidency. And in particular over the last month when – unsurprisingly, but apparently surprisingly for European leaders – Trump proceeded to implement the promises/threats he gave during his campaign.

At their meeting in Paris last night, the European leaders agreed on - well, nothing really. ‘We are not happy with Trump going it alone, and we think that we and the Ukrainians should be included’, that kind of sentiment far the European leaders can agree on. But those are just words of protest - what about actual alternative approaches and concrete steps? Therein lies the rub, to quote Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Hamlet says these word/points this out just before he kills himself and all hell breaks loose in Denmark (the fictional one). So, I suppose, it was only fitting that the one to up the ante a little bit was the Prime Minister of Denmark (the real one). Clearly referring to U.S. President Trump’s direct contacts with Russian President Putin, the Danish Prime Minister warned that, pointed out that Trump’s approach - peace at any cost - was not only wrong vis-à-vis Ukraine, but that it may actually make the whole continent less secure:

“A ceasefire in Ukraine may sound better than it is, because we risk that a ceasefire will not bring peace and will put other European countries, but also Ukraine, in an even more dangerous situation,” she said, warning that Russia might use a ceasefire - if it is on the wrong premises - to mobilize, start over and attack a new country.

The Yanks will go home - but NO European army

European leaders - apparently - keep getting surprised by Trump and his team, but the message that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered in Germany last week is, in fact, almost exactly what Trump and his team have been saying since last Summer:

Ukrainian NATO membership is off the table; the US will not send any troops to Ukraine for any reason (including peacekeeping); the US will no longer supply or pay for weapons and support for Ukraine; Ukraine will not be able to go back to the borders it had before 2014 - the Trump administration expects large territorial concessions from Ukraine.

That message has been loud an clear for a long time. The question now is whether we Europeans will put our money where our mouths are, take responsibility, grow up? Again, therein lies the rub.

Monday in Paris, European leaders around Macron’s table could agree on one thing only; that they don’t like Trump’s approach. But amongst themselves the Europeans heftily disagree about what should happen next:

"We are ready to provide security guarantees, with modalities to be examined with each party, depending on the level of American support," an official said, summarising the results of the Paris meeting. Whatever that means.

You see, already there we are already derailing ourselves; Donald Trump has already said that there will be no U.S. security umbrella, no U.S. security guarantees. See Hegseth just above. It is as if some European politicians cannot read or hear the message from Washington.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky - fighting for the very survival - has suggested an EU army. But that was shut down (pardon the pun) quicker than you could count to one brigade.

“The time has come—European armed forces must be created,” Zelensky boldly suggested at the Munich Security Forum last week. He mentioned a force with 150-200,000 soldiers (with US involvement). Way too boldly, it quickly turned out.

“Far-fetched,” said the French President about Zelensky’s idea, “We have to do things that are appropriate, realistic, well thought, measured and negotiated.”
Some Nordic and Baltic states support the idea. Sort of. Although an expert on Danish defense matters told me that at this point Denmark’s potential contribution to such a force in Ukraine c/would be about… 15-20 soldiers, engineer experts and the like, as the Danish army is already spread thin with engagements in the Baltic countries.

“If you understand by it the unification of national armies, it will not happen,” Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski concluded. The Czech President agreed, and the idea was also quickly rebuffed by the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

Furthermore, most experts agree that a deployment on such a large scale would be impossible for Europe’s depleted militaries.

How about Europe sending peacekeepers to Ukraine then? Naaa….

OK, let’s go down a level or two - how about Europe sending peacekeepers to Ukraine? Fat chance.

Despite three hours of talks, European leaders left the meeting in Paris Monday night without agreeing on possible European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.

Poland is honest about that they “do not want their military imprint on Ukraine soil.” The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the idea “completely premature” and said it was “completely the wrong time to have this discussion.” Scholz even openly admitted to being “a little irritated” by the discussion.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told her colleagues that she was hesitant about sending European troops to Ukraine. She underlined her hesitancy by being one hour late for the meeting.

The French host was wonderfully - well, French (as Donald Rumsfeld would have put it) - and non-committal, proposing a “reassurance force” that would be stationed behind, not on, a future ceasefire line in Ukraine.

The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government was '“open-minded” on the issue of troops but stressed that Denmark was still very far off being able to deploy soldiers to Ukraine. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard says that first step is to agree on a fair and sustainable peace - “when we have peace in place, it will need to be maintained, and for that our government is not ruling out anything.” Not sure what that actually means, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine.

You can do the math - there ain’t many actual commitments to peacekeeping coming from these comments, is there?

As always, of course, the one thing the European leaders totally agree on is that we “support Ukraine for as long a it takes.” There is just one problem here - that the “it“ seems to be a moving target by now.

(Financial Times headline Feb 17 2025)

Starmer want a hybrid solution - but U.S. has already said no to that

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to bridge the two or three different camps; he was the first to state that he is willing to commit British troops to Ukraine, to police a peace deal, "we have got to show we are truly serious about our own defense and bearing our own burden." "The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again," Starmer says.

Sir Keir said the crisis was a “once in a generation moment” and an “existential” question for Europe. But at the same time, the British PM also insists that “there must be a US backstop, that is the only way to deter a Russian attack, a U.S. security guarantee.”

The only tiny problem with this approach is that the U.S. so very clearly has already announced that there will not be any U.S. ‘backstop’:

“If troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission. And they should not be covered under Article 5,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stressed last week, before repeating that no US troops will ever be deployed to Ukraine.

In other words, Starmer sounds politically brave till you realise that the conditions for him actually showing his bravery never will be fulfilled.

Talks: Europe and Ukraine explicitly excluded

Sir Keir said: “We must be clear that peace cannot come at any cost. Ukraine must be at the table in these negotiations, because anything less would accept Putin’s position that Ukraine is not a real nation.”

He warned of a repeat of the chaos that followed the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan under President Biden – which followed a deal struck with the Taliban under President Trump:

“We cannot have another situation like Afghanistan, where the US negotiated directly with the Taliban and cut out the Afghan government,” Starmer said.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius pointed out that it would have been better if Washington had not given what he called “concessions to Moscow” before peace talks even started. His boss, German Chancellor Scholz, said that his country would never support a dictated peace, stressing that Europeans must be involved in Ukraine peace negotiations - “it won't work without us.”

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Europe needs its own plan on Ukraine, or "other global players will decide about our future". Ukrainian President Zelensky has repeated 100 times that Ukraine will “never accept” any deal struck without Kyiv's participation.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene said that Europe should not fall under the illusion that the U.S. and the Russian presidents “are going to find the solution for all of us.”

“It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. Any agreement will need also Ukraine and Europe being part of it,” European Commission vice-president Kaja Kallas said last week.

In reality, of course, Ukrainians and Europeans are now forced to sit and watch TV the next days, as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov meet - to discuss the war in Ukraine and how Europeans will shoulder the military and financial burdens of a potential peace agreement.

The EU’s Kaja Kallas - a long-term strong and open critic of the Russian dictator - turned up the political temperature by in reality warning directly that whatever Trump and Putin agree on may simply be ignored by Europe and Ukraine :

“You need Europe and Ukraine to implement the agreement …. so without those at the table, you can agree on whatever, but it will fail because the implementation is not there”.