Europe’s leaders find no quick response to Trump’s bombshell on Ukraine

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1. A French-led effort by European leaders to present a united front on Ukraine in the face of rising fear over U.S. President Donald Trump’s intentions fizzled Monday as they failed to agree on sending troops to police a possible peace deal.

   French President Emmanuel Macron had called the emergency meeting in Brussels after European leaders were left reeling by news the U.S. would start negotiations with Russia to end its war on Ukraine, but without inviting any representatives from Europe or from Ukraine.

   But after a 3.5-hour huddle at the Elysée presidential palace, the response of leaders to the biggest security calculus shift in decades was underwhelming.

   “We realize that such meetings do not end in decisions,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after the meeting.

   Leaders came up with no new joint ideas, squabbled over sending troops to Ukraine, and once again mouthed platitudes on aiding Ukraine and boosting defense spending.

   “Today in Paris we reaffirmed that Ukraine deserves peace through strength,” said both European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa.

   The core dispute was over whether to send troops to Ukraine if there is an agreement to end the war. U.S. President Donald Trump has ruled out both sending U.S. forces and allowing Ukraine to join NATO, meaning that any effort to prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine again would have to be borne by Europeans.

   The U.S. sent a questionnaire to European NATO countries asking them to spell out what they would be prepared to offer to enforce a peace agreement, as well as what they would expect from the U.S.

   But there was no consensus on the issue.

   France, whose President Emmanuel Macron first suggested the idea, and the U.K.’s Keir Starmer both support the idea, although Starmer said that could only happen if the United States also participated in any peacekeeping force.

   He insisted on the need for a “U.S. backstop” after peace is secured in Ukraine, in order to “deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.”

   But Poland, a frontline state and close ally of Ukraine, with one of the largest militaries in Europe, demurred.

   “We do not anticipate sending Polish soldiers to Ukraine,” Tusk said in Warsaw before flying to Paris.

   “Poland simply doesn’t have the additional capacity to send troops to Ukraine,” said a senior Polish official who spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the country has long borders with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia-allied Belarus, which need to be reinforced with Polish forces. “The French are far away so they can send soldiers to Ukraine; we’re close so we cannot.”

   German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after the meeting that any debate on sending peacekeepers to Ukraine was “completely premature” and “highly inappropriate” while the war continued.

   Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen said “many, many” things needed to be clarified before troops can be sent to Ukraine.

2. This is the price to pay for not having an European army

3. The reality of the European Union rears its ugly head.

   It’s one thing for people to be vocal online about a European Army, etc. – but the chain reaction that is required to get us there practically is complex, long and fraught with challenges.

4. >He insisted on the need for a “U.S. backstop” after peace is secured in Ukraine, in order to “deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.”

   Obviously, the idea is to make Europe the backstop to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again. I assume the US backstop would be reserved for direct attacks on NATO countries.

5. US can negotiate/start but not much happening without Zelensky. 

   Biden didn’t send troops and none of Europe did. Trump probably won’t send troops either, and none of Europe likely will again. 

   War can either end sooner than later or people can keep “negotiating” until Russia makes its way to Kiev in due time. Ukraine is going to lose, but such a sad war. 

   Even if war ends now, Ukraine likely looses 1/5th of territory or so and who knows if it will begin again sooner than later unless nato sends forces. 

   Or can wait and send forces when all Ukraine has left is the west side of the dneiper or less

6. There’s nothing concrete on the table from this meeting, because there’s nothing concrete yet on the table on any agreement towards peace in Ukraine yet, basically.

7. I’m sure people here will blame the USA for this.

   This should show exactly why people from the US ( not just trump but at this point a large chunk of politicians and citizens) are pissed at European partners in NATO.

   Call a spade a spade. The US supplied the vast majority of advanced weaponry to Ukraine. The US is the largest economy in the world which used the power of the Americans dollar coupled with sanctions to weaken Russias economy. During this same stretch of time and preceding this war from 2014, most large European nations actually bought Russian oil and gas in greater quantities.

   Essentially the US has carried a tremendous amount of the aid for ukraine and European members of NATO have actually undermined American efforts by funding Russia for literally over 10 years and even during the war.

   Now, after the US formally marks a realistic line in the sand, Europe has no idea what to do. They liked the prior arrangement where they could essentially spend tons of money in Russia for cheap energy/natural resources and essentially shove all the responsibility onto the USA.

   Now they have no clue what to do. In order to buy from Russia, they would need to spend on defense (similar to India with china. They still trade but India invests a ton on defense to ensure that China would never pursue a fully fledged war). However , spending on defense means the lofty security net they offer its citizens would likely have to fade..that’s political suicide

   Meanwhile, you have citizens especially online that will parrot how strong Europe’s military /unity/and economy are. This should show how weak they are but instead I am sure they will simply point their fingers at the USA

8. As a European it really breaks my heart on how cowed and spineless they are in relation to the US. They are threatening us with invasion. They have actively called for war against Denmark, and still they meek out ‘need for close cooperation’ with the US. I am more and more inclined to be a single issue voter next election. Whoever actually dares to stand up to Russia and the US has my vote.

9. All the anti American stuff is grandstanding, and so are trumps quips. We need each other but the relationship needs to be less of a power dynamic that it is today

10. Europe leaders are week, wasting their time on virtue signaling and useles green policies. No wonder rest of the world is advancing and europe is stagnatig bit most important thing is that nobody feelings are hurt.

11. Well yeah, because Trump has been right the entire time on this particular subject. No other nation is interested in anteing up. The world says out loud they don’t want the US involving itself in global conflicts but then, behind the scenes, recognize the necessity of it and scorn the US when they don’t spend billions on the defense of other nations. It’s time the rest of the world takes their own well-being seriously and stops pretending the US *owes* every other nation the money that is being spent to defend them. That doesn’t mean the US should go full isolationist, but it does mean they should do what they must to reveal that these other world leaders are all talk when it comes to their commitment certain causes. No more of this “we must protect Ukraine!” but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is, it’s revealed that they mean “the US must protect Ukraine (and every other nation with little to no relative cost to any other nation)!”

12. Europe helped the US with troops in every single conflict. Asking Europe to send troops to Ukraine witouth a NATO umbrella is madness and a recipe for direct conflict between Europe and Russia.

    The solution is simple, ukraine should have or get:

    * Nukes

    * NATO membership

    * EU membership

    * No more border disputes

    If those 4 things are realised in a peace deal than it makes sense to send troops. Sadly Trump has already made such a peace deal incredibly hard.

13. This “peace” process will end with nothing, besides Trump losing his face. He’s just alienating too many parties who should be actively involved. European leaders should not even bother to react for now.

    What they should do, however, is to form a defense alliance that is basically a European clone of NATO. Members should be the countries who are willing to support Ukraine, and Ukraine itself. The US would obviously not be a member.

    Any peace deal would require Russia accepting Ukraine becoming a member of that European Defense Alliance. Whether Russia would get to keep some of the territories they occupied would be entirely up to Ukraine to decide.

14. Because European leaders afraid their entire governments will be replaced like Australia if they step out of line.

15. >.Today in Paris we reaffirmed that Ukraine deserves peace through strength<< Van der Leyen is pathetic nd rediculous, as most of the bunch of weak European political leaders assembled in Brussels. They are more midgets and dwarfs pretending to be giants, such as Macron or Scholz.

    Peace will be decided between Russia and Ukrania through American mediation (and pressure). And the EU will probably not be much more than mere bystanders with nearly no say on the matter – and they deserve it.

16. ruzzia will be kicking in Europe’s front door before these clowns do anything.

17. It’s all a charade. They’re setting up Puto-in. It’s what I’m praying for because the alternative is plumb loco. Pinche Trump. I’d love to hear other takes on this.

18. Russia has won.

19. Europe’s leaders don’t find a quick response on much. There’s a reason why collective leaderships don’t last long in politics. They move very, very slowly.

20. I think the only alternative for Europe in this Ukraine situation would be to construct some kind of agreement that would allow Ukraine to have nuclear weapons stationed on its territory.

    France currently has an arsenal of 290 warheads, maybe they could make some military agreement that would allow France to station some weapons on Ukrainian territory, in case of territorial concessions to Russia. Even if this is too difficult to accomplish, I think it would force the Americans to at least consider European countries at the negotiating table.

21. Sorry but it’s hard to not look at the Poles with Disdain here. They have talked a lot during this war about the need to combat Russian aggression, but when push comes to shove, they want other countries to do their dirty work whilst they border Ukraine.

22. test.

23. They has decades to respond

24. This vindicates the US position of not having Europe at the table for talks on Ukraine.
    The meeting was of a subset of countries most likely to agree on policy and make a difference.
    Even then, they failed to agree on anything. One can’t blame Hungary or Slovakia.

    As I point out in my blog series on the Ukraine war, Europe’s purchase of energy from Russia either directly or indirectly (oil from India) is more than the military assistance given to Ukraine.
    The US is at least being upfront that it wants an end to project Ukraine. Europe is stringing along Ukraine.

25. So the Europeans basically validated the decision not to include them in the negotiations.

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