President-elect Donald Trump’s push for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine is finding growing acceptance among Ukraine’s European allies, who increasingly worry that time isn’t on Ukraine’s side in the war.
While European leaders have started discussions to see whether they could fill any funding gap for Kyiv if the incoming Trump administration cuts off support, officials in many capitals recognize that an off-ramp to the conflict appears increasingly necessary. They note how Russia is gaining ground as Ukraine struggles for troops and weapons.
The increased alignment between Europe and the Trump administration over the openness for talks is a sharp turnaround from even six months ago. Back then, European officials looked in dread at the Trump team’s pledge to end the war with swift negotiations amid fears that the former president would cut a deal with the Kremlin at Ukraine’s expense.
Where concerns remain deep in Europe, however, is over the degree to which the Trump administration will deny Ukraine agency over the shape of a diplomatic settlement. European leaders also worry about which Russian demands the president-elect is willing to accept as part of a cease-fire or peace agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has praised Trump and expressed hope that his tough talk about American power can force Moscow to make peace. But Zelensky has also raised concerns about the risks of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Putin on Friday, Zelensky said the call risked opening a “Pandora’s box” in that it could lead to further calls amounting to “just a lot of words.”
“This is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: It is crucial for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation,” Zelensky said in his evening video address. “And to engage in negotiations, ordinary negotiations, that will lead to nothing. As he has been doing for decades.”
Still, the Trump transition is increasingly confident that Ukraine is more amenable to holding peace talks with Russia than it acknowledges in public. Trump and his senior advisers believe that Ukraine, given battlefield setbacks, will soon have little choice but to sit at the negotiating table.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, spoke by phone Friday with Vladimir Putin. Photo: steffen kugler/ReutersUkrainian officials publicly affirm that their aim is still to liberate the nearly 20% of their territory that Russia is occupying. That position is broadly supported by Ukrainians, but acceptance of potential territorial concessions is growing as Russia is moving forward slowly but steadily on the main eastern front despite heavy losses.
A poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in October showed 32% of respondents were ready to give up some territory in return for an end to the war and preservation of the country’s independence. That was up from 14% a year earlier, while the majority are still against any acknowledgment of lost land.
Zelensky’s own “victory plan,” presented in recent weeks in Western capitals, focuses on securing weapons and security guarantees for Ukraine that would deter Russia from further attacks. A real peace, Zelensky has said, can’t be a temporary cease-fire that would allow Russia to rearm and then launch a fresh invasion.
Foreign officials and advisers who have spoken with Ukraine’s leadership say Kyiv is nervous about Trump but fear that a Harris administration would have continued the slow suffocation. Trump at least brings uncertainty, including to Moscow, which Kyiv feels it can exploit.
The big question that remains is how Trump will proceed—and whether Putin will engage in good faith negotiations. His advisers have come up with various plans, all of them significantly breaking from the Biden administration’s “as long as it takes” approach. The proposals, if adopted into a final Ukraine-Russia deal, could see Ukraine refrain from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 20 years while it accepts more weapons to deter a renewed Russian invasion.
Hungary’s Viktor Orban has urged Europe to shift to Trump’s strategy of seeking a swift end to the war. Photo: Attila Kisbenedek/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWhile the current German government has made clear it is against Ukraine’s entry into NATO in coming years, it is unclear if other European allies would go along with that, however, even if they agree that there is a need to start end-of-war talks.
Scholz spoke with Putin on Friday, a spokesman for the German leader said, the first time the two men had spoken in almost two years.
While Scholz condemned Moscow’s continued war on Ukraine and urged Putin to withdraw his troops, reiterating Germany’s longstanding position on the war, according to the spokesman, the call was notable in marking the resumption of direct contacts between Putin and the West.
During the exchange, Scholz urged Putin to enter negotiations with Ukraine aimed at achieving a just and durable peace, the spokesman said. Scholz reiterated Germany’s determination to continue supporting Ukraine against Russia’s aggression.
After the call, the Kremlin said Moscow had long been ready to negotiate an agreement to end the conflict and that “should take into account the security interests of the Russian Federation, proceed from the new territorial realities and…address the root causes of the conflict.”
Kyiv residents took shelter in a subway station last month. Photo: Anatolii Stepanov/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesThe statement alluded to Russia’s position that Ukraine should recognize Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine and give assurances of neutrality going forward.
At a summit in Budapest last week, European leaders discussed for the first time what to do if the U.S. shut off assistance to Ukraine after Trump takes office in January.
However, after a series of phone calls with the president-elect, European officials struck a somewhat more optimistic note, saying that while Trump appeared determined to seek a diplomatic end to the fighting, he was receptive to warnings that he must extract real concessions from Putin and that showing weakness in Ukraine could encourage Moscow’s ally China to be more aggressive in its region.
In most capitals, the formal message remains that Europe will support Ukraine as long as necessary. That is a view firmly supported in some countries such as Poland, the Baltic states and Scandinavian states. But there was caution from French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Budapest discussions about whether Europe could provide the military, budget and humanitarian assistance Ukraine needs if Trump cuts U.S. funding.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long been calling for Europe to shift to Trump’s strategy of seeking a swift end to the war. His argument that Europe lacks a realistic strategy for achieving what it says it wants—a Ukrainian victory recovering its territory—is being echoed even in countries that are far more supportive of Kyiv.
Indeed, even in some of Europe’s more supportive capitals, the hope now is that Ukraine can prevent Russia from winning the war despite the huge cost to Moscow in human and economic terms. That would preserve an independent Ukraine, even if territory has to be ceded for now. An earlier end to the fighting appears more likely to secure that goal, some diplomats say.
Yet there are real concerns in Europe as well.
There is uncertainty about what the president-elect will settle for in talks if Putin doesn’t engage seriously in negotiations and seeks to tighten Moscow’s grip on Ukraine, a scenario that senior U.S. and European officials believe is likely.
If Ukraine is kept out of NATO, European officials say Ukraine must be provided with sufficient military support so that it can fend off future Russian attacks—and the officials want to see the U.S. continue to support those efforts. They also want to ensure that both Ukraine and Europe have a seat at the table in deciding the fate of the conflict and Europe’s future security.
Some senior European diplomats have told their capitals they also need to be prepared for a possible Trump push for European troops to provide security guarantees for Ukraine and to monitor the cease-fire on the Ukrainian side of a contact line, which could stretch hundreds of miles.
Any such decision could be politically challenging for European governments, including Europe’s nuclear powers, Britain and France. Doing so without any U.S. involvement or pledge of support if Russia resumes the war in future would make such a step even riskier.
