A deadly signal from U.S.

Washington's peace plan in Ukraine, which suits Putin, has failed, but many people heard a deadly signal of European support from the US.

Analysis of The Guardian

Kaya Kallas, the European Union's foreign policy chief, urged its officials this week to find Russia every time, in various forms, had invaded other states in the 20th and 21st centuries. The answer came in 19 countries in 33 cases. Kallas, former Estonian prime minister, was not only involved in history. It was seeking to stress a point that lies in the heart of the dispute between the US and Europe over Ukraine's future, a dispute that has again revealed the gap across the Atlantic over the true nature of the Russian regime.

Kallas reads history books as leisure activity and has said that the Soviet Union has since fallen, but his imperialism never declined.

“Russia has never needed to face its brutal past or to bear the consequences of its” actions, she has said, arguing that the nature of the Russian regime means that “the ransom commitment will bring more war, no less”: Putin will be back for more.

A similar warning was made this week by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadeuphul, who has said: “Our intelligence services are telling us urgently: Russia is creating the possibility of a fight against NATO, by 2029, at the latest”.

Putin is recruiting almost a new division a month, Wadephul said, adding: “Divisions that undoubtedly target us, the EU, NATO.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has described Russia “as continuing destabilising power, trying to review borders to expand its power”. Putin, he said, is “a predator, a monster at our gates that constantly needs to eat for his survival”. In short, according to him, “ai is a threat to Europeans”.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told MPs: “We know that without that reincarnation, (Putini) has the ambition to continue again, and it will continue again, and we must guard against this”.

All of this is diametrically contrary to the view of American Isolationists.

Putin's Good Treatment

Steve Witkoff, a New York property researcher who currently represents the US on the world stage, but also helping Russia win Donald Trump's support, has admitted to knowing few stories, telling the newspaper “Atlantic” in May that he had seen several Netflix documentaries to improve.

But based on his four visits to Moscow, he treats Russia mainly as any other country, and Vladimir Putin as any other world leader. He told Tucker Carlson he is sure Russia would not aim to take further territory in Europe after Putin was given four regions of Ukraine.

I don't consider Putin a bad guy. This is a complex situation, that war, and all the components that led to it. You know, it's never just one person, right?

Russia truly wants peace, according to him. The trumpet largely maintains the same kind view of Putin. His vice president, JD Vance, has mocked the idea that Putin had expansion plans. Putin was not Hitler, he explained.

Surprisingly for Europe, this means that no matter how often he managed to get Trump's pendulum out of Russia, the pendulum returns to a natural position of sympathy for Putin. Every time Europe feels that it is on the verge to stop Trump's belief that Russia is aggressor threatening European security and, therefore, US security, Trump gives Putin another chance, “another two weeks”, another call. Trump's only obsessed belief is that Ukraine cannot win the war and should stop further losses.

But until showing this month of a 28-point plan The US-Russia to end the war and the surveillance that Witkoff had trained Russian officials on how to gain the support of the European gang had never seen exactly how American officials envisioned a new European order in which Russia, on behalf of realism, is rewarded and not punished for its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Once again surprised by Trump, European leaders read paragraph after paragraph the US proposal with a mix of distrust and panic.

Former French President Francisco Hollande said: “We are living a moment that is historical and dramatic. It is historical because this plan not only marks the surrender of Ukraine but also the submission of Europe under the tutelage of a Russian-American community. It is dramatic because, for Ukraine, this means the ultimate loss of one third of its territory and does not offer security guarantees to protect it from further Russian aggression. It is also dramatic, because this plan is nothing more than adopting Putin's demands from Trump, reducing Europe in the role of a passerby surrounded”.

Josep Borrell, Kalla's predecessor as head of EU foreign affairs, said: “Plan of the Trump to end the war in Ukraine exposes the failure of the EU's peacekeeping strategy... With a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, the United States of Trump can no longer be considered an ally of Europe, which is neither consulted on issues affecting its security. Europe must accept this change in US politics and respond in line with the” circumstances.

Francisco Heisbourg, a senior adviser to Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, compared the plan to the 1940 ceasefire signed between Nazi Germany and a defeated France. The “is essentially a regulated peace under the terms of Russia”, he said.

John Bolton, former Trump's national security adviser, who turned critical, was even more harsh.

I'm thinking about all those people who said over the past year: "Hey, Trump's changed his mind, he'll back Ukraine." I don't know how many times it'll take to prove it. He doesn't care about Ukraine”, he said.

German CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Rötgen described the moment as a turning point “because it means the US is supporting Putin and selling both Ukraine's sovereignty and Europe's security”. Even if the 28-point plan is not implemented, Rötgen said that the “something fundamental has happened”. We no longer live in the world that was”.

But if it is legitimate for European politicians outside governments to condemn Trump's betrayal, it was the responsibility of European leaders to minimize the impact especially before the arbitrary Thanksgiving deadline Trump set for Ukraine.

Our first “, frankly, work was to find out what had happened”, acknowledges a British diplomat. It is said that at a dinner in Berlin on November 18th, Starmer, Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz exchanged notes for the first time on the scale of what Witkoff had prepared. A European magazine had learned of a new initiative through an information Witkoff gave to Ukraine's national security adviser Rustem Umero at a weekend meeting in Miami.

If so, it was a full month after Witkoff, linking him to the Gaza truce, phoned Yuri Usakov, Putin's principal foreign policy assistant, for the first time, to advise him that he wanted to repeat it in Ukraine. He cautioned that the Russian leader should speak to Trump before the US president meets with the Ukrainian leader at the White House at a meeting scheduled for 17 October.

Witkoff's information helped to ensure that the 150-minute phone call between Putin and Trump on October 15th went well enough for the American president to withdraw from granting the Tomahawk Ukrainian missiles, which they had been waiting for. Instead, Trumpi said he was planning a second summit with Putin this time in Budapest.

European Strategy

At this point, American politics towards Ukraine was beginning to divide. After a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 21 October, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio concluded that it did not in fact make sense for Trump to meet Putin, as Russia had not changed its stance since the Alaska summit. Both sides were still far apart in terms of Ukraine's sovereignty. On October 22nd, US sanctions were imposed on Rosneft Oil and Lukoil, the first to Russia since Trump returned to office.

Undeterred, Witkoff met in Miami with Kiril Dmitriev, a senior consultant of Harvard-educated Kremlin. Few in the State Department knew about these secret contacts, but Florida was where peace plans with 28 points began to be drafted. Judging from later calls published in “Bloomberg”, Dmitriev felt that Witkoff was willing to work with a draft representing a summary of Russian discussion points.

However, Europe is now well prepared in response to the repeated attack of Trump to rehabilitate and reward Putin: first, to welcome the fact of Trump's intervention before slowly and kindly suppressing it.

So Voldymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian president, showed respect for the American president's efforts, but could not hide the seriousness of what he called the “one of the most difficult moments in our history”

“Ukrainian can face a very difficult choice: losing dignity or risk losing a key partner, United States”, he said in a video statement to the nation.

The agreement with US proposals meant “a life without freedom, without dignity, without justice”, he said.

Three factors assisted the European rescue operation. First of all, the draft was so unilateral and so pervatory about Europe's security that it was unmovable. Instead of replacing an alternative, Europeans chose instead to destroy the Witkoff project.

Second, disagreements within the U.S. administration could no longer be hidden, mainly the dispute between Vance and Rubio. This helped the Atlantist wing in the Senate, already concerned about the decline in assessments in the president's polls, to reinvent its spine and voice. This, on the other hand, moved Vancei to make several severe attacks on Congress.

There is an illusion that simply giving more money, more weapons, or imposing more sanctions will bring victory. Peace will not be achieved by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy world. It can be achieved by intelligent people living in the real world”, he said. This left Ruby to walk in a thin line, remaining loyal to an unpredictable president, but clearly telling the American senators that this was not a US plan.

Finally, Europe maintained its unity despite minor rivalries about the roles of France, Germany, and Britain. After a series of meetings in G20 in Johannesburg, an EU-Affliction summit in Luanda, a November negotiations in Geneva, a further meeting in Abu Dhabi, and recently a video call of “the 35-nation voluntary”, Europeans remained united.

Of the original 28 points, only 19 remained until Monday evening, as those affecting European security or NATO's future had been removed. Several paragraphs were simply erased, such as the proposal to re-admission Russia to G7 or to allow the US to sequestify the frozen assets of the Russian central bank, largely held in European countries, to finance reconstruction efforts. The idea that the US would also lift all sanctions imposed on Russia was lifted and a vague reference to Euroflyers and Poland disappeared.

“The absolute condition for a good peace is a set of very strong security guarantees, and not guarantees only on paper”, Macron said.

Some of these guarantees may be offered by the endurance of the so - called coalition of willful ones. Starmer insists that the plans are in place covering capacity, co-ordination and command structure, but it is unclear whether the US will offer any additional guarantees. Rubio has agreed to create a working group to explore how an American guarantee can be more than just for Trump to decide how he will react if and when Russia invades western Ukraine.

Three Ukrainian red lines have been earmarked for further talks: issuing the main parts of Donbas, which are currently under Ukraine's control, accepting restrictions for the military and NATO that forever prohibits Ukraine from membership. But no matter what comes out of this last resort, and as tough negotiations may be only starting Europe must realise it must face the Russian issue alone.

Some figures, like Kallas, insist that Russia can get to a point where it can break until it completes the money, especially if Europe finds a legitimate way to give Ukraine a repayment loan by relying on the frozen assets of the Russian central bank worth 210 billion euros. But Europe is too often to act. Inercia, not Russia, may have become its worst enemy.