Sidelined Europe Seeks Ukraine Role After Trump-Putin Call
Andrea Palasciano, Katharina Rosskopf and Milda Seputyte
5 min read
(Bloomberg) -- European leaders blindsided by Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin insisted they shouldn’t be sidelined after the US president said he’d agreed to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine with his Russian counterpart.
In talking to Putin, Trump swept aside long-standing US policy that nothing should be decided about Ukraine without Kyiv at the table, while cutting out allies with an existential stake in the resolution of a conflict raging on their borders. Many European NATO partners now fear the more conciliatory American stance amounts to a giveaway to the Russian leader.
“It’s clear that any deal behind our backs will not work,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels Thursday. “Any agreement will need also Ukraine and Europe being part of it.”
Russian stocks surged and European defense shares fell on the prospects of a breakthrough that could bring an end to the war three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its western neighbor. Officials arriving for the Munich Security Conference called it a sell-out, saying they feared the US was giving in to Putin’s key demands without getting anything in return.
Any deal struck without Europe “will not be long-lasting,” said Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur of Estonia, a frontline state bordering Russia. UK Defense Secretary John Healey said, “there can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine and Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told allies on Wednesday that America wouldn’t contribute troops to secure a peace, called eventual NATO membership for Ukraine unrealistic and said the government in Kyiv would probably have to accept the loss of some territory.
Speaking in Brussels Thursday, Hegseth dismissed the notion that Trump’s call amounted to a betrayal, calling him the “best negotiator on the planet” and saying the US “recognized the incredible commitments” allies had made. A negotiated peace, he said, “will require both sides recognizing things they don’t want to.”
Hegseth is attending a full meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers before traveling to Munich, where a US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance had been expected to sound out views on ways to end the war. Instead, European officials got no advance warning of Trump’s call with Putin, according to one official.
“It is crucial that when a deal is done it does not unravel,” NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said in Brussels. “We cannot have Putin again trying to capture a square kilometer — a square mile — of Ukraine in the future.”
“We’ve always underlined that it’s about the territory and sovereignty of Ukraine,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Paris late on Wednesday. “There can be no decision about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
EU leaders stressed the continued need for Europe to invest more in its own defense, a longstanding demand of Trump’s which has renewed relevance given his skepticism of the NATO alliance. Hegseth reiterated calls for the alliance to increase spending to 5% of gross domestic product, a level that no NATO member currently meets, the US included.
NATO allies have also attempted to demonstrate to the Trump administration the full scope of their financial support for Ukraine, with Rutte saying that non-US members had footed more than half of the bill in 2024.
“The ticket to the table is to put something on the table,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys told reporters in Vilnius. “If you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.”
Other, Russia-friendly governments more aligned with Trump expressed optimism at the outcome.
“We took a big step toward the realization of our hopes” that the war will end, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a social media post late Wednesday.
Trading volumes on Russia’s main stock index almost tripled on Wednesday in comparison to a day earlier, and the benchmark added around 6%, according to Moscow Exchange data. The rally continued Thursday with the MOEX index gaining another 5% as of 10:40 a.m. in Moscow, while the ruble strengthened more than 3% against the dollar, briefly falling below 90 to the greenback for the first time since September.
Shares of Vienna-based Raiffeisen Bank International AG, which operates the largest Western-owned bank in Russia, rallied as much as 7.6%, taking them to pre-war levels and extending a rally since Trump’s election victory to more than 50%. Ferrexpo Plc, a London-listed mining company with operations in Ukraine, soared 25%.
Defense shares fell in early trading, with Germany’s Rheinmetall AG declining as much as 5.5%, Saab AB falling 4.4% in Stockholm and BAE Systems Plc down 2.9% in London.
Trump’s call with Putin underscored his intent to follow through quickly with his campaign pledges and ditch former President Joe Biden’s approach, which explicitly avoided direct US-Russia contact in favor of letting Ukraine take the lead.
“Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started — it’s appeasement,” Kallas said. “It has never worked.”
Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, criticized Trump’s strategy in an interview with Germany’s Stern magazine.
“I don’t think it’s a smart strategy to simply give Putin everything he wants before you even come together at the negotiating table — with the Ukrainians, mind you,” McFaul said. “That’s not the way to negotiate, especially not with the Russians.”
--With assistance from Kira Zavyalova, Joe Easton, Marton Eder, Arne Delfs and Michael Nienaber.
(Updates with Kaja Kallas comment in the third paragraph.)
