European leaders walk tightrope between backing Ukraine and keeping US on board

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has met key European allies as he faces US pressure to reach a swift peace deal with Russia.

In London, Zelensky held talks with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

The meeting came amid US efforts to get Moscow and Kyiv to sign up – quickly – to a plan to end the war in Ukraine.

For Kyiv, the crucial, thorny issues are the question of ceding territory to Russia as part of any peace deal and obtaining strong security guarantees to ensure that Moscow respects an eventual agreement.

Ahead of the meeting in London, Starmer insisted – as he often has in the past – that Ukraine needed “hard-edged security guarantees”. He has also repeatedly said that Kyiv must determine its own future, not have conditions imposed on it.

The big names Starmer hosted in London discussed hugely significant issues – not only for Ukraine’s future, but for the security of the continent as a whole.

There’s concern that if Russia is “rewarded” by being given Ukrainian territory as part of a peace deal, it could feel emboldened to attack other European countries in the future.

But will Monday’s talks in London make any meaningful difference to peace negotiations?

The visuals of Europe’s arguably most influential nations standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Volodymyr Zelensky in Downing Street tell one story.

But when it comes to Washington, European leaders are walking a tightrope.

In its National Security Strategy published on Friday, the US pointed the finger of blame at Europeans over Ukraine, accusing them of having “unrealistic expectations” as to how the war might end.

Although they have not publicly commented on the document, behind closed doors Europe’s leaders fear Donald Trump is keen for a quick fix in Ukraine, so he can turn his attentions elsewhere.

But a quick fix, they worry, will not mean a long-lasting peace – only a temporary pause in Russian aggression in Ukraine and possibly further afield in Europe.

Recent incidents including unmanned drones causing chaos in civilian airports in Germany, Denmark, Belgium and elsewhere, an act of railway sabotage in Poland that could have cost lives and significant cyber-attacks across the continent have all been laid at Russia’s door.

They have brought the war in Ukraine closer to Europeans, however far they are from the front line.

With that has come a sense that Russia would like to weaken their continent as a whole.

But we do not hear those European concerns broadcast loudly in public.

For the most part, leaders continue to praise Trump.

On Monday, Starmer said the US president had progressed peace negotiations “the furthest we’ve got in the four years” in just a few weeks. He added that talks were complicated, but progress was being made.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested that he was “sceptical about some of the details which we are seeing in the documents coming from the US side”, but added “we have to talk about it”.

The fact is, European leaders don’t want to provoke the US president over differences on how to achieve peace.

Donald Trump has flip-flopped dramatically in his attitudes towards Kyiv since he returned to the White House. He has a pretty tempestuous relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky, whereas he has often described Vladimir Putin as a friend.

Washington has already stopped direct aid to Ukraine – although it still provides much-needed intelligence to its military and allows European countries to purchase US weapons which are then sent on to Kyiv.

European nations are not in a position to support Ukraine militarily without the US.

After decades of under-investment in their militaries, they are not in a position to take on the security and defence of their own continent alone, either.

The US is the biggest and most powerful member of Nato. Europe looks to Washington for intelligence, command and control capabilities, for air force capabilities – such as air-to-air refuelling – and much more.

Despite a pledge to Donald Trump at a Nato summit a few months ago to vastly increase defence spending (and Trump is far from the first US president to ask for that), Europe cannot practically become militarily independent overnight.

European governments are currently facing considerable budgetary constraints.

In the UK, talk of struggling and failing public services are common. In France – which has long been in the throes of a huge budgetary crisis – next year’s draft budget only sets €120m (£105m) in civilian and military aid for Ukraine.

It is because of these limitations that – in public – the concerns about Washington and a peace plan for Ukraine are so carefully expressed by Europe’s leaders. They don’t want to risk being left completely alone by the power they still describe as their greatest ally.

But the differences in the European and US approaches to Moscow are glaring.

While Europeans – particularly in countries bordering Russia – view Moscow as a destabilising threat, in its National Security Strategy the Trump administration talked up the importance of building “strategic stability” with Russia, and questioned Europe’s longer-term reliability as an ally.

Europe’s leaders are trying to avoid further alienating the US president, while fighting for Ukrainian sovereignty and future continental stability. It’s a tortuous dance.