Ukraine: Europeans only prove their own weakness

The Europeans not only internalized the most important lesson in dealing with Donald Trump, they have perfected them. If you want to win over the US President, you have to make it up and impress it with a clear language. When Wolodymyr Selenskyj was sitting in the Oval Office on Monday without the other European representatives, he brought a letter from his wife for First Lady Melania Trump. The Europeans later explained Trump that Vladimir Putin had conquered areas the size of the US East coast in Ukraine. They are moments that make an impression on Trump.

None of this changes the reality of the war at the moment. The morning after the talks in Washington, the Russian President had massive attacks flying to Ukrainian cities. It is true that Trump and Europeans have made progress on Monday. It is even talked about security guarantees for Ukraine. A scenario in which American and European troops are ultimately sent to Ukraine to deterrent seemed excluded a few weeks ago. It is also thanks to the Europeans that Trump apparently thinks about it.

But this tentative American-European approach is only part of the story. The other goes like this: Trump had repeatedly set Ultimaten and threatened with severe sanctions if they were torn. Putin ignored his main claim for a ceasefire, on the basis of which peace negotiations were to take place. He just continues to bomb.

Nevertheless, Trump does not implement the threatened sanctions. He wanted to take high tariffs from Russia to dry out Putin financially. So far there has only been an announcement to India. Further secondary sanctions, for example against China, are long in coming. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Trump has made an agreement with Putin in Alaska an agreement to which he feels bound or simply does not want to burden the conversations. Trump protects Putin, a war criminal and notorious liar – that is reality.

Over the next two weeks, the Americans and Europeans now want to work out what the security guarantees for Ukraine should look like. A kind of assistance obligation based on Article 5 of the NATO contract is in space-but without adding Ukraine to NATO. That sounds good at first. If Putin would attack again in a few years, Europeans and the United States would help Ukraine to defend themselves. The Europeans can be bought that they may have the will. But at the moment they lack the skills to wage a defense war against Russia.

The Americans would have these skills. But would Donald Trump or a possible successor JD Vance actually send US troops to fight against Russia in eastern Ukraine? If the US government gives this promise, at best even in writing, it would be a success from a European perspective.

However, whether it would be worth something can be doubted. Donald Trump changes his opinion on foreign policy issues at least as often as the amount of tariffs for trading partners. And he would have to explain to the “Make-America Great Again” movement why the United States should send troops to either deter or fight Russia. If Trump was serious with a quasi-Nato protection for Ukraine, he could add Ukraine to NATO, minus the areas occupied by Russia. That would be a real announcement to Putin.

Especially since there has been a kind of assistance for Ukraine for over 30 years. When the country once gave up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine received security guarantees in the Budapest memorandum so that the national borders are not violently changed. The Russian Federation had approved these agreements as well as the USA. “Security guarantees on paper are effective if they are underpinned by concrete military, credible presence and equipment,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, former ambassador of the Federal Republic in the United States star. So if American and European peace troops are actually sent to the United States, it would be a game channel.

It was all the more surprising that the German Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul warned on Monday that the Bundeswehr would probably be “overwhelmed” if it should not only be stationed as planned in the Baltic States for deterrent, but also in Ukraine. Trump has been complaining for years – rightly – that Europeans are unable to organize their own security. And now a German Foreign Minister is prevalent when it comes to ending the largest country war in Europe since 1945 with a new security architecture? This is exactly the form of self -dwelling that fell from time completely.

The Germans and Europeans must appear confidently in the next few weeks. Friedrich Merz correctly demanded in the White House that an armistice was the prerequisite for further negotiations. Trump wants Putin and Selenskyj to meet in two soon, after which there should be a three -energy. Europeans should try to prevent this. A meeting without Trump and/or European would be a pure show.

The question is how far the influence of Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen and Co. Do you manage that Trump also makes a ceasefire for further negotiations with Putin? That Selenskyj is not left alone with Putin? And do you manage that the Europeans sit at the table at a three -energy summit in any form?

If so, it might be the beginning of a new European strength, first diplomatic and one day may also be militarily – towards a serious international actor.

If not, it would be a brutally honest description of the actual state: that the Europeans look weak and powerless from the side of the side when Trump and Putin decide on the future of the old continent.