The News
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have taken the lead on developing a peace plan for Ukraine as both leaders seek to act as intermediaries between Kyiv and Washington after Friday’s Oval Office meltdown between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy left future American support in doubt.
How much progress has been made is unclear: Macron has suggested an initial month-long ceasefire, but a British official appeared to rebuff the idea.
The scramble follows a pledge from Kyiv’s European allies to ramp up defense spending as the continent confronts the security implications of the Trump administration’s embrace of Russia: The US has ceased all cyber offensives targeting Moscow, as a Kremlin spokesperson said that Washington’s shift “largely aligns with our vision.”
SIGNALS
Doubts over whether Europe can secure peace without US on board
The pre-planned Sunday meeting between European leaders took on urgency after Friday’s White House debacle, but it ultimately delivered “plenty of promises but few concrete answers,” Politico wrote. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Kyiv’s allies to create a “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine and bolster Europe’s collective security, but promised increases in defense spending will take time to have any measurable effect. If the US pulls back now, “there is no road to victory for Ukraine,” Wolfgang Münchau, director of Eurointelligence, wrote in Unherd, arguing that the European Union and the UK are both structurally and economically incapable of funding a fight against Russia that ends with any measure of success. To signal otherwise, Münchau added, was as “dangerous” as it was “laughable.”
Trump-Zelenskyy spat could augur ‘end of the geopolitical West’
US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous exchange on Friday could prove the “hinge point of history” for US-European relations, The Washington Post’s global affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor wrote. The argument “laid bare the deepening rift” between Europe and Trump. Under the Biden administration, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine had been a “galvanizing moment” for the West, with the US surging support for Kyiv, enabling Ukraine to fight back for longer than Moscow had imagined possible. Now, the Trump administration seems poised to suspend military and other aid to Kyiv, even as Europe scrambles to belatedly bolster its defenses and Russia continues its bombardment of Ukraine.
Some Republicans split on Trump’s pivot to Russia
As the Trump administration seems poised to further embrace Moscow, some Republicans remain wary of potentially undoing decades of foreign policy hegemony and security measures against Russia. After the US sided with Russia in a United Nations vote on Ukraine, Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Axios that “clearly, Putin’s Russia is the aggressor,” while Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, condemned the vote as “shameful.” Others, however, are supportive of a quick end to the Ukraine war so that the US can better challenge China. That “logic is deeply flawed,” a Russia expert wrote for Foreign Policy: China and Russia are so close that to convince one to abandon the other, “the price would have to be exceedingly high.”