If America Walks Away From Ukraine, What Will Europe Do?

 

If America Walks Away From Ukraine, What Will Europe Do?

 

Europeans see Ukraine’s security as vital to their own and want to defend the principle of no border changes by force, even if President Trump does not.

 

Steven Erlanger

By Steven Erlanger

Steven Erlanger has written about Ukraine, Russia and European diplomacy for many years. He reported from Warsaw and Berlin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/world/europe/europe-ukraine-russia-trump.html

April 24, 2025

Updated 11:02 a.m. ET

 

European allies of the United States have been trying to convince President Trump of the virtues of a shared approach toward ending the war in Ukraine, to enhance leverage on both Moscow and Kyiv and to preserve European security.

 

But Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance insisted on Wednesday that a set of proposals that their administration presented to the Europeans and Ukraine last week was now a kind of ultimatum, with the United States increasingly prepared to walk away. European officials who saw those proposals as too favorable to Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin face a dilemma.

 

If Mr. Trump sees Ukraine as just another crisis to fix or not, an obstacle toward a normalized diplomatic and business relationship with Mr. Putin, Europeans see the future of Ukraine as fundamental. At stake, European officials and analysts say, is the key principle of European security for more than 50 years — that international borders, however they were drawn after the end of World War II, should not be changed by force.

 

And those countries say they are prepared to keep supporting Ukraine should the Americans walk away.

 

Mr. Trump’s frustration was evident on Thursday, after the latest Russian attack on Kyiv overnight, the deadliest to hit the capital since last summer. “Vladimir, STOP!” Mr. Trump said in a post on social media. Few in Europe or Ukraine expect Mr. Putin to stop.

 

“My sense is that Europe understands the stakes, and that Europe will continue to support the Ukrainian government,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland said in an interview. “And Poland certainly will, and we’re not the only ones.”

 

An important core of large European countries — Poland, Germany, France, Britain, the Nordic nations and the Baltic nations — all see the security of Ukraine as vital to their own and say they are prepared to continue to aid Kyiv. Even if they cannot realistically help Ukraine drive out the Russians, they want to ensure that Ukraine can keep what it has and can continue to bleed Russia, which has spent the past six months capturing a few villages at the price of scores of thousands of troops.

 

Mr. Sikorski cited estimates that the war has cost Russia at least $200 billion and killed or injured almost a million Russian soldiers.

 

“That’s not my definition of victory,” he said.

 

The Americans provide some key elements to Ukraine, like intelligence, air defense and satellite coverage, which Europeans hope Mr. Trump will continue even if American financial support stops. Yet while “intelligence sharing is important,” Mr. Sikorski said, “that’s not a strong enough card to dictate a capitulation to Ukraine.”

 

Mr. Trump argues that realism requires Ukraine to give up territory.

 

“Most European leaders agree on the need for some sort of territorial compromise, but not one foisted on themselves and the Ukrainians,” said Camille Grand, a former senior NATO official who leads defense studies at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

 

The goal is to enable Kyiv to negotiate for itself an acceptable end to the war, with sufficient security assistance and assurances to deter Russia into the future, ideally with American financial and military help, though without it if necessary.

 

In the current American framework deal, Europe and Ukraine object especially to the proposal to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea by force. That idea is unacceptable even to Russia’s ally, China, which has refused to recognize Russia’s annexation.

 

“It’s quite shocking to Europeans that the U.S. would walk away since it has been so fundamental in solidifying European borders and security, and that drives a lot of the concern among Europeans about what comes next,” Mr. Grand said.

 

The proposed American framework “essentially hands Russia a victory it cannot achieve on the battlefield,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Center in Brussels. “It’s an alignment with Russia, a betrayal of Ukraine and of our security.”

 

To recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea by force, Mr. Zuleeg said, is “a negation of the principles of European peace and puts into question the whole European security architecture since World War II.”

 

The European effort to convince Mr. Trump that it is Mr. Putin who stands in the way of a deal, and not President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, appears to have failed, the analysts say. Mr. Trump may indeed decide to give up on the whole problem, as he did with North Korea in his first term when the deal he had envisaged proved impossible.

 

Mr. Trump is correct that Ukraine is more important to Europe than to the United States, Mr. Sikorski said. “But one of our neighbors has invaded another of our neighbors, and therefore we are prepared to invest proportionally more resources, as we have been doing.”

 

The amount of money Ukraine requires is not enormous given Europe’s wealth — perhaps 50 billion to 60 billion euros a year (some $57 billion to $68 billion) for financial and military aid, while Europe is already intending to provide €40 billion this year.

 

Still, despite a critical mass of large countries — presumably including Germany under its new conservative chancellor — Europeans are divided in terms of practical aid to Ukraine, with some countries like Italy expressing solidarity with Kyiv but not providing much money. Some countries like France and Britain are willing to risk more for Ukraine, proposing sending European troops to provide security assurances, but may have less money to spend than Poland, say, or Germany.

 

And Hungary and Slovakia have little sympathy for Kyiv and essentially align themselves with Moscow.

 

Mr. Zuleeg is relatively optimistic. “The major powers in Europe understand the stakes for their security,” he said. And Mr. Trump has prompted new European overtures to post-Brexit Britain, to Norway and to Turkey.

 

“The recognition is there, unfortunately, that Trump’s actions only benefit the opponents of liberal democracy and European security,” Mr. Zuleeg said. “Countries understand that they must step in wherever they can.”

 

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe and is based in Berlin. He has reported from over 120 countries, including Thailand, France, Israel, Germany and the former Soviet Union.