The EU Needs To Step Up: Trump Should Not Be Left Alone with Putin

Tuesday’s phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian ruler Vladimir Putin confirms what many have known for a long time, but what the White House apparently fails to understand: Putin — unlike Ukraine — is not interested in a cease-fire or peace.

Especially not when the circumstances are favorable for him, as they are now. Russian troops are facing an enemy whose allies are not supplying it with a sufficient number or quality of weapons. Moreover, an amateurish egomaniac is in charge in Washington who, made a slew of far-reaching concessions to Moscow even before negotiations began. The Kremlin can just wait and raise the price of its readiness to negotiate. Trump, apparently, is willing and prepared to further accommodate Putin. In any case, Trump is not thinking about Ukraine at all, as recent weeks have shown.

Trump may have broken the ice with Moscow and thus opened up the prospect of peace talks. But that’s it. The U.S. has yet to make a single demand of Moscow nor set any limits, not even to demand that Russia comply with human rights laws and international treaties. Meanwhile, Putin is using every opportunity to set one new condition after another —and no one challenges them. Not in Washington, where the objective is apparently to appease the Russian bear with a gentle persuasion. Above all, however, no voices can be heard in Europe that, for instance, oppose Putin’s rejection of deploying European troops in Ukraine.

As his domestic policy demonstrates, Trump is the ideal negotiating partner for Putin. The U.S. president has no intention of respecting national and democratic structures or the rule of law. He was elected by the people; that is enough justification and a basis for Trump to believe that everything he orders is right. He is unlikely to give much thought to the Ukrainians’ sovereign right to decide for themselves what happens in and with their country.

It’s time for the Europeans to step up. The shock at the increasing distance of their trans-Atlantic ally, which Europe incorrectly thought shared basic values with us, should not hold the old continent back. But the EU states are struggling; they’re still trying to coordinate, and find common ground at summits that occur almost weekly. Even at the beginning of this week, Vice President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas only had an evasive answer to the question of when the Europeans’ negotiations team would be ready and who would lead it. Important questions need to be addressed. For instance, whether the Europeans are ready to stand up for the administration in Kyiv if Trump willingly accepts unacceptable demands from Moscow in exchange for a general cease-fire, but Ukraine rejects them.

The upcoming summit on Thursday would be a good opportunity for the 27 to lay out a foundation in light of recent events and take a clear position on what has already been discussed in Saudi Arabia or in the phone call between Putin and Trump.