European officials have come around to considering President-elect Donald Trump’s push for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, viewing it as a potential offramp to the costly conflict now approaching its third year.
While European officials were concerned about Trump’s return to the White House given his opposition to providing more aid to Ukraine, his push to end the war with negotiations could spare Europe from having to make up for any gap in American aid, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The president-elect has called for a diplomatic end to the fighting, adding that Russia should be allowed to keep the territory it has invaded, a condition Ukraine has said is unacceptable but that European officials may be open to conceding.
A diplomatic end to the war became more realistic following German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, their first talk in two years.
During the conversation, Scholz urged Putin to enter negotiations with Ukraine aimed at ending the war, the most intense conflict the continent has seen since World War II.
“The chancellor urged Russia to be willing to negotiate with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace and stressed Germany’s unwavering determination to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression for as long as necessary,” said Berlin spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
Following the call, the Kremlin said Russia has long been ready to end the war, but warned that any peace talks “should take into account the security interests of the Russian Federation” and “proceed from the new territorial realities.”
It remains to be seen what is open for negotiations and what Europe would be capable of tackling should the incoming Trump administration pull all support for Kyiv’s army.
Since the start of the war, Congress has pushed five bills aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s defenses to the tune of $175 billion, exceeding the $168 billion contributed by the European Union.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has urged the EU and Washington to continue aiding his nation’s defense, warned that Scholz’s call with Putin risks opening a “Pandora’s box” that gives the Russia chief everything he’s wanted since the invasion began.
“This is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: It is crucial for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation, and to engage in negotiations, ordinary negotiations, that will lead to nothing,” Zelensky said in a public statement.
Trump’s team, however, is confident that Zelensky will fall in line with future peace talks given Ukraine’s continued struggles in the conflict, where Russia continues to make small but steady gains along the eastern front, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Moscow currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine after launching its invasion in early 2022, including Crimea and the vast majority of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region.
It also seems unlikely that Zelensky would be able to convince Trump to keep backing Ukraine given the president-elect’s campaign promise to end the war, coupled with the complicated history between the two world leaders.
Trump’s efforts to leverage aid to Ukraine to force Zelensky to probe President Joe Biden was the key focus of Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.
