Europe appears set for another sidelined role in a major peace push, as a new Axiosreport says Washington has been quietly consulting Moscow on a Ukraine deal.
Other efforts have recently stalled, but Washington appears more hopeful this time, thanks to the success (so far) of its resolution for a Gaza peace plan, serving as a template for a similar deal with Kyiv and Moscow. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who has been in talks with U.S. ‘peace tsar’ Steve Witkoff, also expressed optimism because “we feel the Russian position is really being heard.”
Brussels will, of course, again be upset about largely being out of the picture.
Without waiting for details to emerge, German politician Nico Lange dismissed it as an attempt “to improve Russian-American relations—at the expense of Ukraine and the Europeans,” adding:
As long as this remains the Russian approach, nothing can or will succeed.
Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, agreed that the “secret plan about Europe’s future without the involvement of Europe … hardly sounds promising.”
You can’t expect success when you’re facing an aggressor and only hoping they’ll stop.
Hungarian geopolitical analyst Zoltán Koskovics hit back that Europe can hardly expect to be involved in talks because “the European/Brusselite liberal-technocratic elites have demonstrated—time and again—that they are immature, overly emotional, base their actions on wishful thinking, and are blind to reality.”
“Tutelage,” he said, “is required at least until the peoples of Europe rid themselves of these quite delusional brats.”
As a result of the talks, Trump’s team has drafted a 28-point plan. Sources told Axios that these can be split into four “general buckets”:
peace in Ukraine,
security guarantees,
security in Europe, and
future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
European and Ukrainian officials have reportedly been briefed on these plans.
At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Turkey to ‘reinvigorate’ stalled peace talks with Russia and restore prisoner-of-war exchanges.
The last prisoner exchanges took place in early October, involving 185 prisoners from each side.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
