Europe’s Ukraine fatigue paves way for peace deal

The most fundamental issue is that, if called upon to replace US weaponry to Ukraine, Europe simply could not make up the shortfall. While the continent has collectively allocated more aid over the course of the war than the US, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself recently admitted that Ukraine will “lose” the war if the US cuts supplies of arms.

To some extent, this is the fault of Europe itself. Analysis in May found that, without the US, an annual contribution of approximately 0.5% of GDP by European Nato members to Ukraine’s defence would have allowed Kyiv to maintain a defensive stalemate, while double that would have supported the restoration of Ukrainian land. Yet, by November, only a few nations had reached that minimum level, with defence production having also not expanded sufficiently to supply Ukraine.

It is not as though Europe lacked warnings that America might not always prove reliable. There was the blockage to aid in the US Congress and the clear possibility that Trump would return to the White House, eager to kick off negotiations. While asking Europe to match American military might is a big ask, the continent failed to meet expectations even on a smaller scale, with the million shells promised by the EU to Kyiv hit by delays and shortfalls caused by unexpected production capacity limits.

Europe not only lacks America’s capacity but also its unity as a single country: continental efforts to arm Ukraine are beset by the inevitable divisions between nations pursuing their own interests. On 18 December — just one month before Trump’s inauguration — Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte invited Zelensky and European leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to collectively “brainstorm” ideas for assisting Kyiv. Yet, despite all attendees being supporters of Ukraine, splits quickly emerged over what to do and how to fund it, with the discussions descending into acrimony.

Even if ideas could meet with approval across Europe, leaders’ domestic political situations are preventing them from focusing on Ukraine. Scholz is awaiting elections in February, French President Emmanuel Macron has suffered a period of turmoil, and Keir Starmer has had a bumpy start as British Prime Minister. While such internal issues could be shrugged off as the natural vicissitudes of healthy democracies, with UK support to Kyiv having survived changes in leadership, weak growth and financial constraints are harder to dismiss. Convincing voters of the value of spending vast amounts to prop up a foreign country indefinitely would always have been challenging. However, unpopular European leaders are now particularly vulnerable.

What’s more, the incoming US administration is currently laying the groundwork to get European governments on side for negotiations, with Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg visiting several European capitals in January. As a sign of Europe’s willingness to toe the American line, leaders have already been rhetorically accepting the prospect of a deal. Reports claim Macron told Trump this month that he understood his desire to end the war quickly, while Starmer sparked controversy after publicly discussing putting Ukraine “in the strongest possible position for negotiations”, only a few weeks after vowing to “support Ukraine unwaveringly”.

“This is either the Yalta or the Helsinki moment”, reflected Finnish President Alexander Stubb earlier this month. The Financial Times helpfully added that this referred “respectively to the 1945 conference where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin carved up the globe into spheres of interest, and the 1975 agreement to respect sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states”. Yet, the Helsinki Act also formally acknowledged the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. So Stubb is right either way, a forthcoming agreement is likely to fix borders acquired through Russian conquest to Europe’s east.