Europe Offers Warm but Hollow Words to Ukraine

After what reports described as a tense conversation between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky over the weekend, during which Kyiv was apparently told to surrender the entire Donbas region to Vladimir Putin, European leaders publicly reiterated their support for Ukraine’s war aims.

But behind closed doors, officials admitted that they lack the power to influence events. Some even effectively acknowledged that, as in the Middle East, what Trump says goes.

In a call that followed what sources in the Financial Times described as Trump and Zelensky’s “shouting match,” European Council President António Costa stressed that Brussels will maintain its “military, financial, and diplomatic support” for Ukraine, “as well as security guarantees.”

Member state leaders also threw their weight behind Zelensky, perhaps most fervently Poland’s Donald Tusk, who said:

None of us should put pressure on Zelenskyy when it comes to territorial concessions. We should all put pressure on Russia to stop its aggression. Appeasement never was a road to a just and lasting peace.

Nice words, but they really aren’t much more than that.

Indeed, when asked after the meeting whether the European Union continues to reject Ukrainian territorial concessions, one bloc official told Politico: “No comment.”

Another said that whatever Brussels wishes happens in the war in Ukraine, it will ultimately have “no choice” but to accept the terms of a peace deal brokered by Trump.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also “reiterated our unwavering commitment to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression” following the call, although his promises of support for Kyiv have likewise been of no effect.

European foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg today, October 20th, to further discuss their involvement in the next steps of the Ukraine war.