Donald Trump reverses course on a ceasefire in Ukraine. What can Europe expect now?

If President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in Alaska was designed to bring some clarity to conflict-ending diplomacy, it failed. The talks generated more questions than answers, with the Russians insisting on a Ukrainian withdrawal from the Donbas region, Trump claiming that significant progress was made and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterating that under no circumstances will Kyiv trade away territory for an unjust peace.

Trump’s subsequent meetings on Monday at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders came at a critical time in a war deep into its fourth year. All the sides continue to stress the necessity of a peace agreement that ends the killing, provides Kyiv with security guarantees and ensures the Russians halt their actions. But there are considerable disagreements among these partners on what a final settlement would entail and whether it’s even possible to forge one with Putin, who remains as committed to subjugating Ukraine through force as he was when the war started in February 2022.

You can’t blame the Europeans and the Ukrainians for feeling whiplash. As Trump was flying into Alaska, he was threatening severe consequences if Putin didn’t play ball. Trump stressed that he wouldn’t be happy if he left the summit without an immediate ceasefire and that new sanctions may be necessary if the Russians were intransigent. And yet, after his discussions with Putin, he climbed aboard Air Force One essentially having changed his mind about how to go about striking a peace accord.

Trump took to social media Sunday and threw out the ceasefire idea, and he did so again during his news conference with Zelenskyy. Trump wrote that moving straight to a full, comprehensive peace accord between Kyiv and Moscow would be a better way to solve the problem than waiting for the combatants to stop firing. The Europeans were appalled, if only because this sounds awfully like Putin’s own position. Zelenskyy, meanwhile, continues to stress that his disputes with Russia can’t be addressed without the guns falling silent first, which is something Putin is never going to agree to given the territorial gains the Russian army has made over the last two weeks.