Trump has called Europe’s bluff The bureaucrats had no strategy

The 28-point plan the White House negotiated with the Kremlin is not a done deal. It’s not even close. It is a blueprint, no more, no less. In any case, Trump is an unpredictable player — he could back out at any moment. But this time, I don’t think he will.

The plan, first circulated on a Telegram channel, is clearly not a great one for Ukraine. But, equally, it isn’t a “capitulation” and those who have described it as such don’t really want a deal. Ukraine will be able to improve on it. But, admittedly, not by much. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump once told Zelensky. Unfortunately, after the recent corruption scandal, his hand is weaker than ever.

Over the past three years, US officials have repeatedly told me that Ukraine has no chance of winning the war. And after America withdrew support earlier this year, it was clear that they had a point: Europe was in no position to plug the gap. Europeans might be the self-righteous defenders of the fast-collapsing multilateral world order, but history will record that when push came to shove, they weren’t ready to put their money where their mouth was. On average, the total support for Ukraine was around €4 billion per month during the first half of the year. In July and August, it collapsed to under €1 billion per month, according to the Kiel Institute. No major European country has been willing to cut spending or raise taxes to fund Ukraine meaningfully. The Europeans’ strategy, such as it was beyond photo-ops with Zelensky, was to keep the Russians fighting until they got tired. Unfortunately, America tired first. And Europe had no Plan B.

Now Europe is out of money and out of ideas. And Trump does have a plan. He has been playing the long game. His tough talk against Vladimir Putin was merely tactical, intended to mask a long-term strategy to force an end to the war. As Phillips O’Brien has suggested, in his “Long Con” analysis, even Trump’s secondary oil sanctions were part of this gambit. These were supposed to take effect on 21 November. And yet nothing happened. India and China can continue buy Russian oil with impunity. The sanctions were never serious.

Trump has a singular priority — to end the war, whatever it takes. And he has two major advantages in this bid. One is Ukraine and Europe’s military dependence on the US. The other is America’s unique status as the only influential Western power with direct diplomatic channels with Moscow. The Europeans committed a huge strategic blunder when they simultaneously ended their conversations with Vladimir Putin.

And so Trump’s 28-point plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff with his counterpart in Russia, Kirill Dmitriev. Admittedly, it does have the feel of a work in progress: the leaked version was written in Russian and, when translated into English, is clumsy. It is detailed, but by no means a formally agreed text.

There are, though, some non-negotiable elements. One is the territorial agreement which would give Russia a part of Ukraine it does not yet occupy. Russia already holds almost 90% of the entire Donbas region — all of Luhansk, and roughly three quarters of Donetsk. Trump’s peace plan would hand Russia the remaining territory of Donetsk, along with the 200,000 Ukrainians who are still resident in the Ukrainian-controlled parts of the oblast. Under the plan, the territory would be demilitarised and become part of a buffer zone.

Trump’s team accepted this because they concluded, correctly, in my view, that without it there would be no deal. Putin would have continued to fight and eventually captured more territory. Russia has been making advances: it recently managed to occupy the vital frontline town of Pokrovsk. It could take another year for Russia to capture the remainder of Donetsk, before it went for the big prize: Zaporizhzhia, a city with approximately 700,000 inhabitants, and the capital of the region that bears the same name. At that point, Ukraine’s future independence could could no longer be assured.

This peace deal, though, is not as one-sided as its critics say. It formally recognises the sovereignty of Ukraine, and its right to join the EU. It also allows Ukraine to maintain an army, capped at a reasonable 600,000 troops. Nor does restrict Nato countries from providing further assistance, except for certain weapon categories like long-range missiles.

But there are some real curveballs. I almost fell off my chair when I read Point 14, which suggests the investing of $100bn of Russia’s frozen assets in the reconstruction of Ukraine — with the US taking half of the profits. This is classic Trump: playing commercial games which are beyond the imagination of our European diplomats. In addition, Europe would be obliged to pay $100bn of assistance from their own pockets. There will be a US-Russian investment fund to finance joint American–Russian projects, with profits shared.

But most importantly, the deal forces Europe to unfreeze the $200 billion in Russian assets currently held in European accounts, mostly in Belgium. This is a bitter pill; Europe had hoped it could use the Russian money as collateral for Ukraine loans. Trump has no authority to force Europe to release the funds — Friedrich Merz already said No to this demand — but he could make life difficult if it refuses.

Europe’s only semi-coherent strategy regarding Ukraine had been to withhold these assets as leverage for future reparations  — a plan built on the fiction that Ukraine would win this war. But if Russia and Ukraine end up agreeing a deal, this scheme would be rendered unworkable, since would be a tool with which the Europeans could sabotage the deal.

Another red-line in the peace deal is the gradual lifting of sanctions. Readmitting Russia to the Group of Seven advanced industrial nations — making it the G8 again — would be painful for the Europeans. Russia was expelled in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea. A revived G8 would effectively be ruled by Trump and Putin.

No surprise, then, that EU leaders at the G20 summit in South Africa this weekend issued a statement to say that they wanted to make a counterproposal, designed primarily to frustrate Trump’s plan. They insisted on a ceasefire — a non-starter. And after senior US and European officials met in Geneva on Sunday, they said they had made some progress but gave no details.

Ukraine, by contrast, made some positive noises about a new version of the deal. The Kyiv Independent quoted a senior US official saying that the plan had been drawn up with Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National and Security Council of Ukraine, and one of Zelensky’s closest aides. Umerov reportedly agreed to the majority of the deal, after making several modifications, which he then showed to Zelensky.

Domestic attitudes in Ukraine are also shifting. I noted a post from Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s former press secretary and staunch defender of Ukraine. Over the weekend she tweeted: “My country is bleeding out. Many who reflexively oppose every peace proposal believe they are defending Ukraine. With all respect, that is the clearest proof they have no idea what is actually happening on the front lines and inside the country right now.” She is absolutely right in her observation that the loudest supporters of Ukraine in Europe are those with no understanding whatsoever of the military reality on the ground.

So will the Europeans encourage Zelensky to keep on fighting? I am sure they will try. But I am not sure they will succeed. Ultimately, they will back down.

Because if Ukraine were to reject the deal, Trump would formally disconnect his remaining military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine. The country relies on this as its early warning system for any incoming attacks as well as guiding its own strikes on Russian infrastructure.

Trump could go even further and renounce US responsibility for Europe’s security, on the grounds that the continent is taking unacceptable risks. The Europeans know this, of course. While outwardly, they may give an impression of defiance, their actions suggest otherwise. After Trump imposed tariffs on European imports this summer, the EU folded and agreed to a big increase in military spending. If Europe really wanted independence from the US, it would have created a defence procurement union, with a “Buy European” mandate and started to reorganise its militaries. None of this is happening. Nor will it. This is the problem with the multilateral crowd. They care too much about procedures.

We can expect a good deal of huffing and puffing coming from European capitals over the next few days. Leaders will insist that they are retain sovereign decision-making. Legally, this is true. The US has no rights to decide the fate of Russian assets held in Europe.

But this is not a legal dispute, it is a political one. Europe never had a viable strategy for the war — and now it’s becoming clear it has no strategy for peace either. The Europeans have no choice but to make a deal: they have no cards left to play either.

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