US runs Ukraine peace talks while keeping Europe at arm's length

The United States is conducting peace negotiations to end Russia's war in Ukraine while keeping its European allies at arm's length, a dynamic that has left the EU and Britain scrambling to protect both Kyiv's interests and their own security architecture. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte insisted on Tuesday that European allies "were closely coordinating with the Americans" and in constant touch with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, even as Rubio declined to attend a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels the following day. The contradiction captures the current moment: Washington sets the tempo, Europe reacts.

A proposal that reads like a Russian wishlist

Donald Trump's 28-point plan, leaked before any European consultation, has been widely assessed as a catalogue of Russian demands. It called on Ukraine to concede not only territory currently occupied by Russian forces but also parts of the Donbas fortified by Ukrainian troops at enormous cost. The plan would cap Ukraine's armed forces at 600,000 personnel and impose a permanent ban on NATO membership. For European capitals, these terms cross multiple red lines established since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch defence minister, told reporters before Monday's meeting of European counterparts in Brussels that Ukraine's territorial integrity and a strong Ukrainian army were areas Europe was not willing to negotiate. "A powerful Ukrainian military is a strong deterrent towards Russia and makes the entire European security system stronger," he said. The Netherlands backed the position with a concrete commitment, pledging €250 million in weapons to Ukraine, the only specific announcement to emerge from the ministers' session.

The fine print that alarmed European security analysts

Beyond the headline concessions, experts identified clauses that would reshape the European security order. Jana Kobzova, co-director of the European Security Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the draft's stipulation that European fighter jets be stationed in Poland "suggests that American ones, deployed under this or future US administrations, cannot be there." Other provisions appeared to endorse Moscow's long-standing demand to push NATO infrastructure as far from Russia's western borders as possible, "effectively eliminating the alliance's deterrence on its eastern flank," Kobzova wrote. "All this would create dangerous precedents affecting the whole of Europe."

Europe's counter-offer and the Geneva meeting

Caught off guard by the leak, Germany, France and the United Kingdom drafted a counter-proposal. It raised the peacetime force cap to 800,000 soldiers, affirmed that NATO membership remains contingent on consensus among allies, and insisted that NATO fighter jets, including American ones, would be stationed in Poland. European security advisers took this framework to Geneva for talks with Rubio, briefly creating the impression that Europe had secured a seat at the table.

Miami talks expose the limits of European influence

That impression lasted days. The United States invited only a Ukrainian delegation to Miami for the next round of discussions. At the start of Monday's defence ministers meeting, Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, told reporters that Ukrainians had negotiated alone on Sunday and that their position would have been stronger "if they would be together with Europeans." The exclusion underscored a structural weakness: Europe has no unified Ukraine strategy, leaving it permanently reactive. As Rafael Loss of the ECFR put it, "Europe doesn't have a [Ukraine] strategy, so it is forced to react. Trump is in the driver's seat and sometimes he can be reasoned with, sometimes not. Fundamentally, Europeans have not answered the question of what they want to achieve" in Ukraine when the war ends.

The coalition of the willing and the reassurance force

Into the vacuum, the "coalition of the willing", 31 mostly European countries led by France and the United Kingdom, has accelerated work on long-term security guarantees. A joint task force with the United States is now examining the potential deployment of a multinational "reassurance force" to Ukraine. In a late November interview with French radio RTL, Emmanuel Macron said French, British and Turkish soldiers could be sent to Ukraine on the day "peace is signed." Such a force would require an American backstop, specifically air cover to protect European troops if they come under threat, and American diplomacy to persuade Moscow to accept the arrangement.

The credibility gap in US security guarantees

Markus Ziener, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, described a fundamental mismatch. Europe is pushing for guarantees that "look and feel like NATO protection, even if Ukraine's formal membership takes longer." But Washington has signalled it will only discuss guarantees after a peace deal is signed and refuses to put US troops on the ground. "Any American pledge would be political, not a hard defense commitment," Ziener said. "For Europeans, that raises doubts about how credible such a promise would be in deterring Moscow." The distinction matters: a political assurance can be reversed by a future administration; a treaty obligation under Article 5 cannot.

A steel porcupine strategy without the steel

The longer-term European vision is to build Ukraine into what officials privately call a "steel porcupine", militarily strong enough to deter another Russian invasion. That requires sustained provision of advanced weapons, joint production of key systems, and funding for salaries and pensions. Monday's defence ministers meeting discussed these needs but produced no new commitments beyond the Dutch pledge. The gap between ambition and resourcing remains wide, and every week of negotiations without European presence widens it further.