According to European officials, this would not be a just peace and would only encourage a wider war to come with the aggressor country Russia.
Representatives of several European states are expected to travel to Washington in the coming days to discuss peace negotiations on Ukraine with the American administration.
Europe, and especially the UK, still hopes that US President Donald Trump will return to his views in October, see the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin as a blocker of peace initiatives and increase pressure on the Russian economy. At the same time, European leaders also fear that the head of the White House may wash his hands of the war in Ukraine if he fails to reach a peace agreement.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz consider their key task to be to prevent a split between the United States and Europe, which is what Moscow is seeking, Bloomberg indicated.
Context
On December 8 in London, Macron, Merz, Starmer and Zelensky will discuss US peace initiatives to end Russian aggression against Ukraine. European leaders will discuss the issue of security guarantees for Kyiv, “after all, the security of Europe as a whole is at stake in Ukraine,” the French President noted.
The Ukrainian and US delegations have already held seven rounds of negotiations on a “peace plan” for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war. In parallel, the American side is discussing the same issue with the aggressor country of the Russian Federation.
Thus, on December 2, illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the son-in-law of the head of the White House Jared Kushner at negotiations in Moscow for about five hours discussed several projects of the “peace plan” to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian war, Putin’s assistant Yuri Ushakov reported after the meeting. According to him, “no compromise was found” on the territorial issue. One of the key issues at the negotiations was Ukraine’s membership in NATO, Ushakov pointed out.
On December 3, Trump opined that Putin “would like to end the war.” However, on December 4, Putin said that the aggressor country of the Russian Federation would allegedly “in any case” seize the Ukrainian Donbass and other territories of southern Ukraine – “militarily or otherwise.” Putin's new statements indicate that he does not intend to retreat from his maximalist goals in the war against Ukraine, Politico explained.
The media reported that there are three pillars on which the Russian Federation will not compromise in peace negotiations on Ukraine: the territory of Donbass, limiting the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and recognition of the occupied territories of Ukraine by America and Europe.
Earlier, on December 2, Zelensky said that there were 20 points in the “peace plan,” but “some things still need to be worked out.” The three most important and sensitive issues are territories, frozen assets of the Russian Federation and security guarantees for Ukraine, the president indicated.
