Friday, the senior leader in the European Union foreign policy had an blunt evaluation of the apparent will of the Trump administration to give the leader of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, a large part of what he wants In Ukraine, even before negotiations to end the three -year war. .
“It’s appeasement,” said the manager Kaja Kallas at the Munich security conference. “It never worked.”
Ms. Kallas, former Prime Minister of Estonia, was hardly the only European diplomat by pronouncing the word “appeasement”, with all her historical resonance, although she was one of the rare willing to do so on the file.
It was an almost universal description of the disorganized and often contradictory approach to the Trump administration questions that seize the continent: what type of peace did President Trump in mind? And will he be done with Mr. Putin on the head of Ukrainians and Europeans, whom Mr. Trump apparently expects to endure the burden of future security in Ukraine?
After days of speeches and private meetings in Munich, many officials said they were more confused than before their arrival. The statements made by US Secretary for Defense, Pete Hegseth, in his first effort to international diplomacy, went contrary to the statements made by Vice-President JD Vance, also in his first international business since his inauguration.
And European officials declared that they had tried, without success, to extract from Mr. Trump’s national security team to any plan to ensure that Mr. Putin did not simply use a cease -Feu to rebuild his decimated soldiers and, in a few years, he returned to take the rest of Ukraine.
They also declared that they were amazed that Mr. Trump, who revels in his skills in negotiations in the real estate sector, was willing to give up a lever effect before entering the negotiations on the fate of 233,000 miles squares of some of the most precious agricultural land in Europe and a home for technological innovation.
Friday afternoon, hundreds of participants in the conference stuck in a hotel room to hear Mr. Vance, expecting that he takes these problems in a long-awaited address. But to the astonishment of political decision -makers and defense and intelligence leaders who had piled up, he mentioned Ukraine once, only by passing, while giving European leaders for having suppressed the discourse of political movements on the right and type Maga in their country.
He did not offer any road card for negotiations or even any strategic vision of what Europe should look like after the most devastating war against the continent in 80 years. Nor did he promise that Europe or kyiv would be at the heart of negotiations on the borders of Ukraine and its survival as an independent state.
Later in the day, at the end of a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, from Ukraine, just before getting on Air Force Two to return to Washington, Mr. Vance offered a little more, The most vague objectives for the upcoming talks with Russia.
“We want the war to end its end, we want the murder to stop, but we want to achieve a lasting and lasting peace, and not the kind of peace that will have Eastern Europe only in conflict a few a few Any more road, “he said.
The last sentence has been critical, because many European leaders here said they fear that Mr. Trump will not want an agreement so much – and perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize he said that he deserved – that ‘He would accept terms that would leave Ukraine in the cold and allow Russia to rebuild its devastated forces and again attack Ukraine – and perhaps, later, Moldova too, and even to test the ‘NATO in the Baltic nations.
But Mr. Vance deviated all questions on the question of whether Russia would be able to keep land that it had illegally invaded or how to reach an agreement if Mr. Zelensky was not yet ready to meet Mr. Putin, who argued that Ukraine is not even a real country.
“I want to preserve the optionality here for negotiators,” said Vance.
He said nothing about a calendar for negotiations or if he had examined with Mr. Zelensky, as expected, a Ukrainian plan to give the United States access to some of the minerals of the country’s rare land. This was one of Mr. Trump’s requests for continuous support.
Mr. Vance perhaps said so little because Mr. Hegseth, the defense secretary, seemed to have given so much, then in return, then, Friday, the media badly informed to interpret it badly.
On Wednesday, Hegseth said that the Ukrainians had to understand that they were going to lose a large part of their country in the face of Russia as part of any colony. He added that if an agreement was concluded, no American troop would participate in a peacekeeping force on Ukrainian territory. It would be the Europeans to control any ceasefire or formal armistice-with a non-nato special force. This status would guarantee that if it was attacked, the United States would not be trained in a war to defend its NATO allies.
When his comments were ridiculed through Europe and denounced by Mr. Zelensky, he said that he had given nothing and that only Mr. Trump had the power to decide what would be and would not be returned. He never talked about what Russia might have to abandon in a negotiation – if anything.
Last week, a NATO Foreign Minister said that allies were informed that all Ukraine’s options were on the table and that the White House was open to discussions. Now things are less clear, especially after Mr. Trump’s telephone conversation with Mr. Putin earlier this week.
The problem, said the minister, is that the normal machinery for the construction of foreign policy has been deliberately broken, various civil servants using Mr. Trump from various points of view. The Allies do not have a clear image of how decisions are made, said the minister, a change compared to the last 20 years.
And if there is no machine, the allies cannot plan and have a strategy, said the minister, who insisted on anonymity due to diplomatic practice and the sensitivity of the issue.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Mr. Trump’s call with Mr. Putin, breaking his isolation, was a surprise for the allies. “This is not how the others do foreign policy, but it is now reality,” she said on German public radio.
There is also an increasing consensus on the fact that Europe should make a strong counter-offer to Mr. Trump, in particular on the support of Ukraine.
“Ukraine has an agency and resists assault,” said Radoslaw Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Poland. “He has allies who will support him to come which May. It must therefore be included in any negotiation which concerns him. »»
Ukraine has a small chance of surviving Russia’s assault without American support, said Zelensky in an interview with “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker of NBC”.
“In all difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have a short chance-a little chance of surviving without support in the United States, “he said In an extract published on Friday. The full interview will be broadcast on Sunday.
Foreign ministers and officials from several European countries – including Great Britain, France and Germany – met in Paris on Wednesday evening and published a statement promising Ukrainian support.
“We are impatient to discuss the way to follow with our American allies,” he said. “Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiation. Ukraine should receive solid security guarantees. »»
