The international peace effort for Ukraine gained huge momentum after President Trump held lengthy phone calls with presidents Putin and Zelensky on Wednesday, February 12th—during which both sides confirmed that they were ready to move forward with negotiations with U.S. mediation and under the terms suggested by Trump as a starting point.
In other words, Trump managed to kickstart the peace process less than a month after re-taking office, “bringing two sides together to find a negotiated peace, which is ultimately what everyone wants,” according to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
During a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth also said that Ukraine’s NATO accession was never truly achievable and that pursuing the restoration of the country’s pre-2014 borders was an “illusionary goal” that would only prolong the war and cause more suffering.
At the same time, Hegseth stressed that peacekeeping will primarily be the job of Europeans, but within a strictly “non-NATO” mission that will not be covered by Article 5. Europe will also need to invest a lot more in its own deterrence capabilities, he said, as the U.S. will no longer subsidize its allies’ defense.
Although leftist media and politicians both in Brussels and Washington act like Trump sold Ukraine out and is negotiating over the heads of Kyiv, President Zelensky struck an optimistic tone after their phone call:
Together with the U.S., we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace … As President Trump said, let’s get it done.
This leaves everyone (Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S.) more or less on the same page and equally part of the solution—everyone, except the European Union, which is desperately trying to stay relevant while history is being made in the next room.
“Peace can only be achieved together. And that means: with Ukraine and with the Europeans,” Germany’s green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock argued, even though she’s only a minister for a couple more weeks and will hardly be involved with any actual talks. “We must take this path together so that peace returns to Europe,” she stressed.
Polish PM Donald Tusk took a similarly desperate tone when pleading for EU involvement in a post on X:
Ukraine, Europe, and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER.
Maybe out of embarrassment, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hasn’t even reacted on social media yet, leaving it for the bloc’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas to put out a statement on behalf of Brussels as well as the countries of the “Weimar Plus” format, meaning France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
“We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies,” the statement says, emphasizing once again the self-evident need for Kyiv to be included in the process, along with the less straightforward role of the EU. “Ukraine and Europe must be part of the negotiations.”
Sovereigntist leaders who had always been advocating for peace and against the EU’s self-sabotaging diplomatic isolation of Russia, such as Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, were quick to call out this apparent desperation.
“I don’t know if it sounds a little embarrassing when some EU Member States and EU institutions are now fighting for seats at the negotiating table on peace,” PM Fico commented on social media, adding that “nobody will call” the EU leaders unless the bloc realizes that it “must be sovereign in opinions and attitudes to survive” in today’s geopolitics.
Similarly, Orbán said that Kallas’ statement was a “sad testament of bad Brusselian leadership.” The prime minister suggested that the EU has blown its chances of being taken seriously after the moral and political failures of supporting unnecessary bloodshed over the last three years:
You can’t request a seat at the negotiating table. You have to earn it! Through strength, good leadership, and smart diplomacy.
