Why Europe fears a Trump-Putin peace deal in Ukraine

Good morning. The moment of which European capitals have long been afraid arrived yesterday evening, as US President Donald Trump, fresh off a 90-minute telephone call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, announced he was starting bilateral peace talks with the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine — leaving Europe out in the cold.

Here, I attempt to capture the sense of deep trepidation caused by Trump’s announcement. And Laura reports on the collapse of coalition talks in Austria that many thought would bring the far right into power.

Spectators

“Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” has been Europe’s mantra for more than three years. When that was eviscerated last night with Donald Trump’s convivial peace talks invitation to Vladimir Putin, the penny dropped that Europe, too, had been sidelined.

Context: European governments have long argued that they need to be part of any potential peace talks in order to ensure the continent’s long-term defence and security architecture and contain any future threat of aggression from Russia.

“We each talked about the strengths of our respective nations, and the great benefit that we will some day have in working together,” Trump gushed about his chat with Putin, a man that most EU capitals view as a war criminal.

Trump’s decision to begin bilateral negotiations with Moscow shatters any illusions that Brussels could play a role in shaping the outlines of any peace deal. To compound Europe’s sense of powerlessness, Trump later added that Saudi Arabia would be likely to play middleman.

European officials, essentially kept in the dark about Trump’s Ukraine plans since his election, were clutching to the hope of using bilateral meetings in Munich today and tomorrow with Keith Kellogg, ostensibly the president’s official Ukraine envoy, to gather some insights and try to influence the White House.

Those already far-fetched fantasies were wholly dashed when Trump didn’t even name Kellogg as one of his four-man negotiation team.

Europe’s dread is two-fold.

First, a fear of having to pay — through reconstruction funds, arms supplies and peacekeeping troops on the ground in Ukraine — to enforce an agreement they won’t have negotiated.

Second, the worry that Trump may agree terms that ignore the continent’s broader security concerns, which Putin could exploit to bring future pressure against other countries.

Those fears were fanned by Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth insisting yesterday that Ukraine would never join Nato, that US troops would never be deployed there, and that restoring Ukraine’s lost territory was an “unrealistic objective”.

“We want to discuss the way forward with our American allies,” France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK, Ukraine and the EU said in a joint statement issued following a meeting of foreign ministers in Paris last night.

“Ukraine and Europe must be involved in any negotiations,” they added, in hope rather than expectation.

Spokespeople for European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte declined to comment when asked for their response to Trump’s announcement.

Chart du jour: Surge

European stocks ticked up yesterday on hopes of a Ukraine peace deal, continuing this year’s upward trend. The Russian rouble also jumped.

Sigh of relief

The European Council won’t add another far-right leader to its table for now, as coalition talks in Austria led by the Freedom Party under Herbert Kickl have fallen apart, writes Laura Dubois.

Context: The far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the conservative People’s party (ÖVP) entered negotiations in January, following mainstream parties’ failure to form a cordon sanitaire against the FPÖ, which had come first in September elections.

But FPÖ leader Kickl handed his mandate to form a government back to President Alexander Van der Bellen yesterday. In a letter to the president, he said discussions on the division of government portfolios “were not successful”.

Kickl, known for his pro-Russian views, had demanded his party lead the interior ministry — something that was unacceptable for his prospective government partners for security reasons.

“We received numerous warnings from within the country and from abroad that the co-operation of intelligence services would be in danger if the Freedom party were to appoint the interior minister,” said ÖVP leader Christian Stocker.

The FPÖ controlled the interior ministry between 2017 and 2019, when it was the junior partner in a coalition with the ÖVP under Sebastian Kurz. At that time, most allied foreign intelligence agencies stopped co-operation with Austria as a result.

That government later collapsed after the party’s leadership was filmed soliciting political favours from a fake Russian oligarch’s niece they believed had the backing of Vladimir Putin.

With those credentials, officials in Europe will be breathing a sigh of relief that Kickl won’t be the next Austrian chancellor after all — for now. If new elections were held, the FPÖ would be expected to increase its share of the vote, something Kickl might have been banking on.

Van der Bellen yesterday urged the mainstream parties to find a compromise and said he would assess the best way forward over the coming days.

What to watch today

1. Nato defence ministers meet in Brussels.

2. European parliament president Roberta Metsola begins a two-day visit to Israel and Palestine.

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• ‘Strategic necessity’: As the US slashes its foreign aid, the EU must step up not just out of moral duty — but because it’s in its interest, argues Hadja Lahbib.

• Back to the future: Trump has also vowed to make America the “crypto capital of the planet”. Can he make bitcoin useful?

Join me and expert colleagues as we debate Europe’s challenges and the fallout of the German election in this exclusive FT webinar on February 27. Register and send us your questions here.