European leaders have gotten the message loud and clear: After 75 years of assurances the United States would rally to defend any NATO ally under attack, they now know they would be on their own.
President Donald Trump has been bad-mouthing NATO’s core principle of collective security since before his first term in the White House. But it has taken almost a decade for the Europeans to acknowledge Trump’s admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, which was on full display during Friday’s shocking attempt by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance to force Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to effectively surrender to Russia.
The blinders are off. The leaders of Britain, the European Union and NATO scrambled over the weekend to show solidarity with Zelensky in his refusal to accept the Trump-Putin peace plan devised without Ukrainian involvement. The U.S.-Russia strategy would impose a ceasefire with neither commitment from Russia to negotiate an end to the war nor allow a European monitoring force to guard against ceasefire violations.
At an emergency summit in London on Sunday, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer led the Western chorus pledging solidarity with Zelensky in pursuing a just peace, not just a pause for Russia to rearm and reinforce its hold on occupied Ukraine territory.
“Europe must do the heavy lifting,” Starmer said of the U.S. defection from the democratic bloc’s support for Ukraine. “Our starting point must be to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position now, so that they can negotiate from a position of strength.”
The British leader called the assemblage “a coalition of the willing” coming forward at this “once in a generation” moment of truth to stand up for what is right. He said Britain was ready to put “boots on the ground and planes in the air” to protect Ukraine’s security.
Starmer announced Saturday night some immediate British aid to Ukraine. London will tap $2 billion of export financing funds to deliver more than 5,000 advanced air-defense missiles made in Northern Ireland. There was also talk, British media reported Sunday, of London freeing up some of the estimated $300 billion in frozen Russian bank deposits to fund rearmament of Ukraine and its rebuilding when the relentless Russian destruction stops.
Any presence of Western forces in Ukraine to monitor an agreed ceasefire was rejected by Russia last week, in contradiction to Trump’s assertions that Putin would agree to a third-party deployment if he asked him.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Sunday that sending European peacekeepers to Ukraine would amount to a continuation of Europe’s “incitement” of Ukraine to continue fighting Russia.
At the historic Lancaster House in central London where the leaders met, French President Emmanuel Macron agreed with Starmer and Zelensky to craft a new ceasefire proposal to present to Trump that would boost confidence in Ukraine that a halt in the fighting would lead to negotiations on a lasting settlement, not just freeze the status quo.
Zelensky has good reason to distrust Putin’s commitment to ceasefires. The Kremlin leader agreed 10 years ago to halt his 2014 invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. During peace talks overseen by Germany and France, Putin’s forces continued to occupy and expand Russia’s territorial seizures while pretending to negotiate an end to the conflict. The peace talks petered out and Putin launched his full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Russian forces now occupy 20% of Ukraine’s territory, internationally recognized after Kyiv surrendered its nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for Russian guarantees of respect for its post-Soviet borders.
Hours after Friday’s White House meeting from which Zelensky was unceremoniously expelled, Starmer moved up a scheduled visit by Zelensky to Saturday. He greeted Zelensky outside of 10 Downing Street with a hug and assurances that European democracies are on Ukraine’s side.
“As you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom,” Starmer said, gesturing to a crowd cheering the Ukrainian leader. “We stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take.”
Starmer was careful not to openly criticize Trump’s staged humiliation of Zelensky at the White House. The Ukrainian president had been expected to sign a deal giving the U.S. administration half of Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals and other natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The trade was intended to create grounds for a ceasefire, in Trump’s words, by establishing a U.S. economic presence in Ukraine that would serve as a deterrent to any future Russian aggression. Trump accused Zelensky of hating Putin and making it difficult for him to get Russia to negotiate.
The Europeans pledged Sunday to bring together the Western allies now at odds with Trump over Putin’s leverage in getting a pause in the war with no restraints on reviving it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov praised Trump’s sea change in relations in recent weeks, pivoting to Russia and threatening Ukraine.
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Peskov told a reporter from state-run television Sunday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”
Political analysts and mainstream media have largely described the White House diplomatic debacle as a disrespectful barrage against Zelensky. Trump and Vance accused him of ingratitude for the generous support the United States has given Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s attempt at conquest. They also berated him for refusing to sign the minerals deal in “compensation” for past U.S. aid and for vaguely proposed reconstruction plans once the war in Ukraine is over. Vance accused Zelensky of failing to thank Trump for “all that he has done” for Ukraine.
“Why in God’s name should Trump get a thank you?” former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul demanded in an interview on Inside with Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary for President Obama and now an MSNBC host. McFaul pointed out for viewers that not one cent of new U.S. aid has been approved since Trump took office and that the last tranche during the Biden administration was held up for six months at Trump’s insistence to his Republican allies in Congress.
European allies of the United Stated have long been uncomfortable with Trump’s blithe disregard for the value of Western democratic alliances, from NATO to the Group of Seven to traditional cohesion with the European Union. Trump’s exiting of the Paris Climate Accord that he withdrew from during his first term and did so again within days of his Jan. 20 inauguration sent a signal that the contrarian was back with a vengeance.
The London summit drew leaders from Germany, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania. The Turkish foreign minister and the presidents of the European Commission and European Council also attended. Starmer briefed the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three former Soviet republics considered the most vulnerable next target of Putin’s empire-building if his forces are not stopped in Ukraine. It was unclear why the Baltic states didn’t participate in person.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a right-wing leader with the best relationship with Trump of the NATO allies, stood with the rest of the Europeans pledging unfettered support for Ukraine in its defense against Putin’s aggression. She called Trump ahead of the summit but didn’t disclose what, if any, encouragement she gave him to reconsider his defection from the Western alliance of sovereignty-respecting nations.
While the Europeans spoke to the need to recover U.S. support for Ukraine in order to present a united front in pursuing peace talks, Trump loyalists echoed the president’s call for Zelensky to resign and be replaced by a more compliant Ukrainian leader.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, said Sunday that Zelensky “needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country.” Asked during the interview on NBC’s Meet the Press whether Putin also should resign, Johnson said only that he would like to see Putin “defeated.” That is a highly unlikely prospect for a dictator in power for 25 years expected to rule until the end of his life in a country with no free press nor credible elections.
Zelensky “either needs to resign or send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, demanded after Friday’s showdown, enraged at the Ukrainian wartime leader’s refusal to capitulate to a ceasefire plan drafted without Ukraine’s involvement.
Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, echoed the call for replacing Zelensky, telling CNN’s State of the Union that the United States is looking for a Ukrainian leader who can deal with Washington, accusing Zelensky of “either personal motivations or political motivations” preventing him from ending the Ukraine war.
Trump last month called Zelensky a “dictator” for refusing to hold new elections for the presidency in the midst of relentless bombardment by Russia and when half of the Ukrainian population is either manning the front lines or taking refuge abroad. Trump also accused Zelensky of starting the war that has cost his country tens of thousands of lives and many thousands more wounded. Russia has suffered even more horrendous casualties—1,500 a day of late, according to the British defense intelligence agency—but Putin is under no domestic pressure to end the national bloodletting still alluded to as a “special military operation.”
The Trump administration’s calls for Zelensky to resign have had the opposite effect of what the White House intended. Zelensky’s approval rating had been hurt by a recent call-up of new and younger soldiers for the depleted forces at the front. His support soared among Ukrainians at home and abroad after Vance signaled the U.S. change in allegiance from Ukraine to Russia.
