For the four and a half years since Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion, European nations have stoutly defended Ukraine with weapons, training and huge amounts of cash and goodwill. But they have not been involved in any of the stop-start, top-level peace negotiations. Those have been largely left to US President Donald Trump and his hapless chief negotiator Steve Witkoff, who has shuttled between Kyiv and Moscow, failing to achieve much progress.
Yet, in recent weeks President Trump has shown that for him negotiations have only one aim – to sell out Ukraine and end the war on Putin’s terms, with side deals offering lucrative business contracts for him and his associates.
Seeing this, European leaders have belatedly concluded that they too need to be at the top table, to try and steer things in a different direction. Talks are now under way to find a suitable negotiator.
The top candidate seems to be Finland’s current President, Alexander Stubb. He, along with Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, broke ranks with European nations to hold what he called a “frank and substantive” joint call with Putin on Tuesday from Helsinki. The discussion looked to “future negotiations to help to end the war”, but was not part of an official Europe-wide overture.
Stubb has the advantage of a good relationship with Trump, and the Finns have decades of experience in managing a fragile relationship with their overbearing neighbour. The Kremlin has already indicated it would accept Stubb as a negotiator “if he can make a constructive contribution”, adding that merely repeating the current EU position would not be seen as constructive.
Whoever gets the job, they will have to find common ground between Trump and the Europeans, who at present stand miles apart on Ukraine.
The current robust European stance has been strongly shaped by the Poles and the three Baltic nations, all of whom harbour grudges against Russia for understandable historical reasons. All of them suffered hugely at the hands of the Soviets, regard Russia as an ongoing threat and believe Putin’s goal is to recreate the Soviet empire. They are unwilling to see Ukraine cede an inch of territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also been highly persuasive. Most European leaders share his resolve to defeat Russia, and have a strong aversion to negotiating at all with an aggressor. The very word “appeasement” tends to kill any thought of peacemaking stone-dead.
For these reasons, Europe has so far shunned the negotiating process and put all its efforts into helping Ukraine fight “for as long as it takes” – apparently with the goal of recovering Crimea and all the territory in eastern Ukraine that Putin has seized. Europe’s negotiator will have to finesse that (to say the least) if there is to be any hope of progress.
A few cracks have appeared in the unyielding European position. Belgium’s prime minister Bart de Wever has said he doesn’t “see the point of financing a war and not negotiating”.
He added: “In the long term, if it’s a choice between living in eternal enmity [with Russia] or striving for normalisation, then the latter is preferable.” He says France and Italy agree. Only the Czech Republic President Petr Pavel, however, has so far suggested that Kyiv will have to make some “painful concessions”.
That Ukraine will have to give up its aspiration to join Nato is already accepted privately by pretty much everyone, and the hard truth that Ukraine will never reconquer all its lost territories by force of arms is sinking in. When a deal is eventually struck it will inevitably involve giving up some land to gain peace and security.
Ukraine would lose Crimea and some other occupied territories (which would become de facto, if not de jure, Russian possessions), but could enjoy a status like Austria’s – neutral but with, eventually, EU membership. Russia might also accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine – so long as they do not in turn harm Russia’s own security.
Ahead of three-way talks involving Russian, Ukrainian and American officials that are due to be held in Abu Dhabi early next month, both Zelensky and Putin have made unusually helpful statements that might at least improve the atmosphere.
Zelensky acknowledged for the first time that Russia too will need security guarantees, and that he could accept a ceasefire along the current line of contact, thereby accepting Russia’s “temporary occupation” of Ukrainian lands. Putin, for his part, warmly welcomed a ceasefire brokered by Melania Trump in Russian-occupied Oleshky to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, and suggested it could serve as a precedent for similar localised ceasefires elsewhere.
Zelensky recently indicated for the first time he could accept a ceasefire that freezes the current line of contact, thereby accepting Russia’s “temporary occupation” of Ukrainian lands, while not recognising it in law.
Britain remains firm in its support for Ukraine, and its relations with Russia could not be colder. But Andy Burnham’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell has made a career out of talking to enemies, and was instrumental in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Perhaps he could bring those skills to Europe’s negotiating team.
The fact is, the political forces in Europe most predisposed to talking, and ending the war, are hard-right parties – the AfD in Germany, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, Reform UK – all of which feed off public hostility to the economic burden of financing the Ukraine war.
Pouring billions into arming Ukraine while social and economic problems mount at home is not a good look. Eventually, it may be electoral pressures that force Europe’s centrist governments to adopt a more flexible approach.
Angus Roxburgh is a former BBC Moscow correspondent
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