At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Europeans, although divided, still held on to the diplomatic levers. Emmanuel Macron held numerous phone calls with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Britain was united with Ukraine and drew closer to Europe. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni made a sharp pro-Ukrainian turn. Joe Biden's contacts with America were regular.
Almost four years later, Europeans are marginalized in a crisis that directly threatens the security of their continent. This is what political analyst Isabelle Lasser writes in an article for the French daily Le Figaro.
Like the Ukrainians, they were not informed about the 28-point Russian-American plan, the "Miami Plan", which offers Ukraine as a gift from Russia to Vladimir Putin. They were not invited to the talks in Geneva on November 23 between the Americans and the Ukrainians.
After announcing their presence, they quickly jumped on a train to Switzerland and tried to influence the text by changing its most scandalous points. But since then, they have remained excluded from the White House's efforts to end the largest land war the continent has seen since World War II. They have been reduced to the role of firefighters, called in every week to put out a new fire, with the sole aim of limiting the damage.
The agreement, drawn up by special envoys from Russia and the United States, two former Cold War arch-enemies, risks sealing the fate of Ukraine and changing the fate of Europe. The promises of improvements received by the Europeans in Geneva, in particular the assurance that issues directly affecting them - frozen Russian assets, Ukraine's accession to the EU, security guarantees - would no longer be discussed in the ongoing discussions, convinced the major European capitals that they had avoided the worst.
"It is clear to everyone, including the Americans, that there can be no peace agreement or ceasefire without guarantees that Russia will no longer be able to invade Ukraine," said a source at the Elysee Palace. But in reality, the Europeans and their Ukrainian allies are finding it extremely difficult to resist the power of the US-Russian scissor, which seeks to divide the victim's territory and weaken it politically. "Geneva has become a point of no return. "A step away from the battlefield," commented a European diplomat.
Caught off guard by the initiative, the Europeans decided not to oppose the Russian-American plan so as not to "anger Trump," according to one diplomat.
They chose to use it as a starting point for negotiations, intending to change it significantly. But they have since struggled to gain access to the plan in its entirety. And reports that Trump is preparing to offer Vladimir Putin de facto recognition of the occupied Ukrainian territories in exchange for his signature on a peace plan do not bode well.
For Ukrainians and Europeans, bad news is pouring in. The former are facing military and political difficulties. On the front lines, where manpower is scarce, the Russian army continues to advance, albeit modestly. In the rear, drone strikes and shortages of water and electricity are undermining morale. And in Kiev, the corruption scandal has beheaded Volodymyr Zelensky's inner circle. Having lost his right-hand man, Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president, whose negotiators were due to meet the Americans in Miami on Sunday (without the Europeans), has further weakened his position vis-à-vis the Russians, who refuse to sign a peace treaty with him, and vis-à-vis Donald Trump, who dislikes him.
According to information obtained by Le Figaro, the Americans are using the corruption scandal to force Zelensky to choose between signing a bad peace deal that would give him and Putin amnesty and the opportunity to leave office with his head held high in the next elections, or repeating Yermak's fate, with the added bonus of a complete halt to American aid, which would seal his country's fate. As if the future of the next Ukrainian government would be shaped by the Americans and the Russians...
On the other hand, Russia is in a strong position. Its military economy and its demographic reserves for the front allow it to survive the war.
And the prospect of trade cooperation with Donald Trump's United States could, in the event of a peace agreement, allow it to end its economic isolation. As the Wall Street Journal explains, for Donald Trump, "Russia is not a military threat, but a land of abundant opportunity".
The future agreements between Moscow and Washington, long discussed by the special envoys of the two countries, concern rare earth elements, Arctic resources and perhaps even some of Russia's frozen assets, from which American companies fully expect to benefit, including in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Bribed by the Kremlin, Trump has turned the mix of geopolitics and business into the driving force behind his future peace for the region, a prerequisite for which is the lifting of sanctions against Russia. "Donald Trump is the master of time, and Vladimir Putin is the master of fire", summarizes a European diplomat. He continues: "Today, only Americans can achieve peace. Therefore, it is obvious that it will not be perfect. And they can only do it with Russia, the country that controls the financial flows."
In the face of this new American-Russian war machine, Europe remains passive.
After four years of broken promises to Kiev, delays in arms deliveries, timidity and empty words, it continues to waver and divide, still failing to provide the Ukrainians with the means to win the war. Some countries still cling to the illusion of American support, which is nevertheless crumbling day by day, unable to imagine a future without Washington's protection. Belgium blocks the use of frozen Russian assets. On the international stage, Europe, which believed it could isolate Vladimir Putin, finds itself marginalized in the face of a Russian president who has expanded his circle of friends in the "Global South".
Regarding the "coalition of the willing", which met again last week, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen nicknamed it: "the coalition of the waiting". Paralyzed by the Trump-Putin alliance, the Europeans continue to prepare for Ukraine's future, promising fighter jets and assuring it that they will do everything, as a source from the Elysee Palace put it, "to develop security guarantees after the ceasefire" and to "take control away from the Americans".
But what leverage do they currently have to thwart the most problematic points of the interim peace agreement? Among them is the question of the territories that Ukraine could cede to Russia, with the latter even demanding the part of Donbas that it has not yet conquered. But there is also the question of security guarantees, which will be discussed only after the signing of the peace agreement, with the risk that they will prove insufficient to prevent Russia from gaining political or military control over Ukraine. This is reminiscent of what happened with the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, in which the signatories reneged on their promise to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders when one of the guarantors, Russia, invaded the country.
Many questions remain unanswered.
Will Vladimir Putin, whose goals extend far beyond Ukraine and who has devoted his country’s entire economy to the military effort, agree to sign the plan? If so, will he use it, as he did with previous agreements - which he used as a tactic to buy time and appease the West - to continue the war in another way or in another place?
After fighting heroically against the Russians, will the Ukrainians accept a plan that leaves them at the mercy of the aggressor without providing them with sufficient security guarantees?
Will the Europeans make the necessary efforts, including opposing the Americans, to prevent the Ukrainians from being forced into an unjust peace that benefits the aggressor?