Just when European leaders thought things couldn’t get worse, Donald Trump decided to call Vladimir Putin, effectively launching peace negotiations without so much as a courtesy briefing to his transatlantic allies. A grand diplomatic gesture? Hardly. A strategic disaster in the making? Absolutely.
The sight of Trump and Putin engaging in a high-stakes dialogue, with European leaders watching from the sidelines, was sobering. The call blindsided Brussels—no warning, no consultation. This was a brutal awakening for those still harbouring illusions of a coherent transatlantic alliance.
Trump’s first move wasn’t to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That call came later, almost as an afterthought, with Trump telling Zelensky he would “force” Putin to stop the war. It was a noble promise if only it were rooted in reality.
European officials were appalled. One senior diplomat called it a capitulation before negotiations began, a sign that Washington was prepared to entertain Putin’s demands before Ukraine could even state its case.
Meanwhile, Putin is sitting comfortably, watching the spectacle unfold. His strategy has always been clear: wait for Western disunity to do the heavy lifting.
Trump isn’t just stepping back from Ukraine—he’s ensuring that Europe foots the bill. His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has left no room for ambiguity: Ukraine will not join NATO, and the United States will not commit troops to any future peacekeeping mission. In other words, Europe is on its own.
While Washington shifts its strategic focus towards containing China, European governments are now scrambling to assemble a credible deterrent against further Russian aggression. The financial burden is daunting: $175 billion to rebuild Ukraine’s military, $30 billion for a 40,000-strong peacekeeping force—already deemed insufficient by Kyiv—and a staggering $720 billion in total defence investments to make NATO’s European members militarily self-sufficient. If these commitments are financed through debt, they will add $2.7 trillion to Europe’s borrowing needs over the next decade.
The real question remains: does Europe have the political will to confront this challenge? Given its track record of hesitation and fragmentation, confidence is in short supply.
This moment marks a profound failure of Europe’s long-cherished vision of democracy, peace, and stability—principles that were meant to define the European project after the devastation of two world wars. The EU was built on the belief that economic interdependence would prevent future conflicts, that diplomacy would replace militarism, and that the continent could guarantee its own security through soft power rather than brutal force. That illusion has now collapsed. Instead of leading on security, Europe has spent decades relying on the US nuclear umbrella and America’s military might to safeguard its borders while underinvesting in its own defence. Now, with Trump effectively handing over Ukraine’s fate to Russia, Europe finds itself vulnerable and unprepared. This crisis is not just a failure of foreign policy—it is a devastating blow to the credibility of the European project itself.
Europe has made a catastrophic strategic blunder by blindly aligning itself with the United States. Russia is not some distant adversary—it is a neighbour, and neighbours must talk. After the Crimea invasion in 2014, relations between Germany and Russia deteriorated, but Angela Merkel, ever the pragmatist, maintained a dialogue. She weakened the deep-rooted energy dependency between Moscow and Berlin while keeping the channels open. Today, that fragile balance has been shattered. Europe no longer speaks to Russia—Washington does, and it will negotiate on Europe’s behalf, with little regard for its interests. Meanwhile, Moscow has found a new best friend in Beijing, locking in energy deals that will make a European rapprochement increasingly unfeasible. Europe has lost on every front.