The Brussels elite threw all its punches at the latest Trump-Putin conversation, but clearly failed to leave a mark, with Washington predicting yesterday that a full Ukraine ceasefire agreement could be reached in as soon as “a couple of weeks.”
U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz also confirmed on Wednesday that “technical teams” from the countries involved will soon meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss “implementing and expanding” the partial ceasefire which has already been secured, and which European politicians and journalists have enjoyed dismissing as a failure.
These same media figures have been keen, when reporting on Donald Trump’s call with Volodymyr Zelensky last night, to draw attention back to the pair’s—how to put it—passionate exchange in the Oval Office earlier this month. Perhaps that’s good for hits, but what actually matters now is a new U.S. proposal to run a Ukrainian power plant, which Trump said “would be the best protection”—as opposed to, say, a European ‘peacekeeping’ force. And that, as Zelensky put it, recent efforts have “significantly helped in moving toward ending the war.”
I had a positive, very substantive, and frank conversation with President of the United States Donald Trump @POTUS. I thanked him for a good and productive start to the work of the Ukrainian and American teams in Jeddah on March 11—this meeting of the teams significantly helped… pic.twitter.com/JFBd5EeIkg
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 19, 2025
It remains to be seen whether the same could be said of talks in London on Thursday between military officials representing countries in the so-called ‘coalition of the willing.’ It doesn’t help that in Britain, at least, strategic defence reviewer and retired general Richard Barrons says current defence spending targets are not enough for the country to stand up to its own rhetorical commitments.
European Union leaders are also gathering today for another European Council meeting in which Ukraine will dominate the agenda.
