Europe
thinks Trump’s peace talks will fail. It wants them anyway — to call Putin’s
bluff.
The plan
is to play along with Trump’s peace efforts until he realizes that Putin is not
serious about ending the war.
August
19, 2025 10:03 pm CET
By
Gabriel Gavin, Jacopo Barigazzi, Camille Gijs and Dan Bloom
BRUSSELS
— European leaders don’t believe Vladimir Putin is sincere about a peace deal —
so their strategy is to humor and praise Donald Trump until he finally reaches
the same conclusion and realizes he will need to get tougher on the Kremlin.
The
European side thinks it’s a win-win approach. They will be delighted to be
proved wrong if the U.S. president can negotiate an end to the Ukraine war with
meaningful security guarantees, but the primary game plan is all about calling
the Russian leader’s bluff and lobbying for tougher sanctions.
French
President Emmanuel Macron, the world leader who made the greatest efforts to
prevent the Ukraine war through diplomatic outreach to Putin, is now the most
outspoken in declaring that the Russian president is not serious about peace
and is still wedded to his goal of destroying an independent, democratic
Ukraine.
“Do I
think that President Putin wants peace? The answer is no. If you want my
deepest belief: No. Do I think that President Trump wants peace? Yes,” Macron
said before departing for Washington, where he joined talks on Monday. “I don’t
think that President Putin wants peace. I think he wants the capitulation of
Ukraine. That’s what he has proposed.”
Indeed,
far from offering any concessions for a peace deal, Putin is simply demanding
more territory from Kyiv, including key Ukrainian defensive lines that would
allow him to strike deeper into the country. He is also flatly rejecting the
presence of NATO forces to guarantee the country’s security after the war — a
crucial condition for Kyiv.
With
preparations now under way for a possible summit involving Russia and Ukraine,
leaders from across Europe held a series of emergency talks on Tuesday to weigh
their response and share intel from discussions at the White House the day
before.
According
to five diplomats, granted anonymity to shed light on the sensitive calls, the
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 was shown to be
the biggest obstacle to peace.
“It’s
clear that if we end up in a situation where Putin proves he doesn’t want to
end the war, that will force Trump to act and it strengthens the case for
sanctions,” said a diplomat from one country represented in a virtual European
Council session on Tuesday.
The
Europeans see U.S. sanctions pressure as crucial to the diplomatic process, and
many argue Putin was strong-armed into engaging with Trump in Alaska only after
Washington introduced high tariffs against India over its purchase of Russia’s
economic lifeblood: oil. The dramatic next step would be to escalate similar
sanctions to throttle Russia’s all-important trade with China.
A second
diplomat confirmed the allies were happy to support the American initiative to
broker a truce, not because they necessarily thought it would work but “because
it will be a clear test of Russian intentions.” A third said the security
guarantees being developed would help Ukraine “negotiate from a position of
strength,” while sanctions would ensure “we … have leverage on Putin.”
Leaders
including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO
Secretary-General Mark Rutte, France’s Macron, the U.K.’s Keir Starmer and
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni jetted to Washington on Monday to back up Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a sit-down with Trump. That came just days
after the U.S. leader hosted Putin for talks in Alaska and claimed to have made
progress on “many points.”
“This is
a constant Trump management exercise for everyone — Putin included, by the
way,” Fiona Hill, a former advisor to the Republican in his first presidential
term and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told POLITICO.
“But I
think they did as good a job as you could expect on Monday.” According to her,
the best that could have been hoped from the Alaska summit was “something they
could work with — and it seems like there was something, even though the optics
were terrible.”
Penny
drops for Trump
Western
partners have lavished praise on Trump — thanking him for hosting the talks —
and expressed genuine relief after he appeared to give substantial assurances
that the country would play a role in security guarantees for Ukraine as part
of a peace deal. Behind closed doors, however, they are more focused on pushing
for new, hard-hitting economic restrictions if and when Moscow refuses to end
its invasion.
“Everyone
is going through the motions,” a fourth EU diplomat said. “But we don’t know
what Putin’s end game is. What will motivate Putin to give 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 has been evasive. Playing for
time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was not rejecting
talks with Ukraine — but insisted any summit would have to be prepared “step by
step, gradually, starting from the expert level and then going through all the
necessary stages.” Putin even rather unhelpfully suggested a summit in Russia —
an idea that was instantly dismissed.
One
German official said this vacillation was becoming a substantial test of
Russian seriousness.
“Russia
agreed to host or participate in a bilateral summit with Zelenskyy … In the
meantime, I take it from the [media] … that the Russian side now interprets
this differently,” the official said.
On the
European side, diplomacy is now moving briskly. The EU held an extraordinary
meeting of ambassadors until 2 a.m. on Tuesday ahead of the leaders’ call and a
separate video conference with the informal “coalition of the willing,” which
includes non-EU countries such as Turkey and Canada. This comes just as a
meeting of military chiefs is expected this week in Washington to discuss
concrete security guarantees for Ukraine.
EU
defense and foreign affairs ministers will also meet informally next week as
expectations grow that a concrete peace proposal could be ready to present to
Zelenskyy and Putin within about a week.
Trump has
hinted that American air power could be used in Ukraine, while European
countries could deploy troops to safeguard the country — all outcomes that
would fly in the face of Russia’s ambitions to seize more territory.
But while
Western countries are increasingly confident they can work with Trump and
maintain a united front, they’ve also been forced to adjust their red lines to
suit him. Following the talks in Washington, the EU on Monday appeared to
soften its demand that Russia accept a ceasefire before negotiations begin.
“There
was some hope Trump could change his mind back on the ceasefire issue. That
didn’t happen,” said a fifth diplomat, expressing concern over the difference
in positions. “But overall it was still a good step towards peace.”
Most
crucially, however, even Trump himself now publicly acknowledges that Putin
might not be negotiating in good faith.
“We’re
going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks … It’s
possible that he doesn’t want to make a deal,” the U.S. president told Fox
News.
“I hope
President Putin is going to be good, and if he’s not, that’s going to be a
rough situation.”
Joshua
Berlinger contributed reporting from Paris, Luke McGee from London, James
Angelos from Berlin and Sebastian Starcevic from Brussels.
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