Included in the annexes of the Ukraine peace deal, Trump's plan to restore relations with Putin's Russia is causing anxiety in Europe. “It's like Yalta”
The US peace plan in Ukraine includes proposals for the restoration of Russian energy supplies to Europe, major US investments in Russia, as well as the exploitation of frozen Russian sovereign assets, writes the Wall Street Journal.
A series of proposals by the Trump administration on the reconstruction of Ukraine and Russia's return to the global economy are raising fears and discontent among European partners and could profoundly alter the continent's economic map.
The US plan was detailed in annexes attached to the current peace plan, which are not public but were described to The Wall Street Journal by US and European officials.
The documents detail plans by US companies to use about $200 billion of frozen Russian assets for projects in Ukraine, including a massive new data center to be powered by the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, currently occupied by Russian troops.
Another annex lays out the overall US vision for Russia's economic recovery, with US companies set to invest in strategic sectors ranging from rare metal mining to Arctic oil exploration.
“Like Yalta”
The plans also involve restoring Russian energy supplies to Western Europe and the rest of the world.
Some European officials who have seen the documents, writes the Wall Street Journal, said they are not sure whether to take some of the US proposals seriously. One official compared them to President Trump's unrealistic plan to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Another official, referring to the proposed energy deals between the US and Russia, said Trump's plan was an economic version of the 1945 conference in which the victors of World War II divided Europe.
“It's like Yalta,” he said.
Europeans, reluctant to resume gas imports from Russia
In a phone call Wednesday, Trump discussed the peace process with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Europe, which has tried to reduce and even cut off Russian gas imports to deplete the Kremlin's war funds and reduce its own dependence on a strategic rival, is reluctant to resume energy purchases from a country it sees as the biggest threat to its security.
At the same time, European officials want to use the same frozen Russian funds – held in European institutions – to provide a loan to the cash-strapped Ukrainian government so it can buy the weapons it needs to defend itself and continue to operate as its coffers are empty.
The German government has struggled to explain that European sanctions prohibit any activity or financial transaction aimed at repairing or reusing Nord Stream.
An American aid to Russia
European officials say they fear the US approach would give Russia the respite it needs to revive its economy and strengthen itself militarily.
And this help offered to Russia would come at a complicated economic time for Moscow.
A new assessment by a Western intelligence agency, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, shows that Russia is technically in recession for six months and that the challenges of managing its war economy while trying to control prices pose a systemic risk to its banking sector.
German Chancellor Merz told a meeting at 10 Downing Street with Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the leaders of France and the UK on Monday that he was “skeptical about the US proposals”.
The accelerated schedule of negotiations and summits in recent weeks suggests, however, that the discussion is moving rapidly toward a conclusion, the Wall Street Journal writes.
Steve Witkoff, Trump's emissary to Russia, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, consulted with Wall Street executives on how to revive Ukraine's battered economy.
At the same time, Ukraine's chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, was a regular guest of Witkoff's in Miami.
European leaders spoke by phone with Witkoff on Wednesday and will meet in Paris at the weekend. On Monday, they will meet again in Berlin. Witkoff and Kushner will participate in these meetings via video conference.
