Strengthen his hand

Ukraine’s allies rush to bolster Zelenskyy amid fears over Trump-Putin deal

After Ukraine’s leader struck out at the White House last Friday, his European friends will try to strengthen his hand before it’s too late. 

By Tim Ross, Nette Nöstlinger, Veronika Melkozerova and Emilio Casalicchio

Ukraine’s allies are racing to reinforce Kyiv’s position ahead of talks between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid concern that the two leaders could stitch up a bad ceasefire deal that would weaken all of Europe. 

At a summit this week, European leaders aim to agree on a three-pronged package of support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give him the strongest possible hand in negotiations over any potential truce.

At the heart of their strategy is a plan to mobilize more funding to Kyiv from frozen Russian assets, alongside more weapons, and moves to hit Russia’s economy with new sanctions, according to diplomats and officials preparing Thursday’s gathering in Brussels.

The renewed urgency among Kyiv’s allies comes after Trump once again flipped his position on the war, saying he’d be open to freezing the conflict along its current battle lines — less than a month after he suggested Ukraine could win back all its territory. His comments have revived concerns that he could force Zelenskyy to hand over territory to Russia.

That outcome, European officials say, would be a disaster, not just for Ukraine but also for them. 

“International borders must not be changed by force,” declared Zelenskyy and the leaders of the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Norway, Finland and Denmark, in a joint statement on Tuesday. “Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace,” read the statement, which was also signed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa.

“Ukraine must be in the strongest possible position — before, during, and after any ceasefire,” the leaders said. “We are developing measures to use the full value of Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs.”

Zelenskyy said that European leaders will ask Trump to provide long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, after he came away from a meeting with the U.S. president empty-handed last week.

Diplomats expect Zelenskyy will address leaders at Thursday’s summit, either in person or via video call, to rally their support. Other allies including the U.K.’s Keir Starmer will join for a broader discussion among the so-called “coalition of the willing” later this week. 

Aside from arming Ukraine, EU countries are close to agreement on two other critical planks of their support: a 19th round of economic sanctions to hit Putin’s war chest, and drawing up plans to raid Russia’s frozen financial assets to unlock some €140 billion for Ukraine. 

The cash is desperately needed in Kyiv and progress toward releasing the funds this week will signal to Putin that Ukraine will have the means to keep fighting for at least the next two years, officials said.

The shadow of Orbán

The European efforts come at a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s three-and-a-half-year war against invading Russian forces. Looming over Thursday’s European Council summit will be the shadow of a planned meeting in Budapest in the coming weeks between Trump and Putin to discuss the terms of a possible truce — an initiative that follows Trump’s hitherto successful efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán is an ally of Trump who has remained on good terms with Putin throughout the war, to the consternation of other EU leaders. He has repeatedly held up EU sanctions against Russia and called for “peace,” arguing that Ukraine’s war is not Europe’s to fight.

Some EU leaders will be lobbying to attend the Trump-Putin meeting as well as to ensure Zelenskyy has a seat at any negotiations, according to one diplomat familiar with the matter, who like others quoted here was granted anonymity to speak candidly. Zelenskyy said on Monday he would be willing to go to Budapest if he’s invited. 

For Europeans, the big fear is that Trump will again side with Putin in determining what peace will look like and will pressure Zelenskyy to accept Russian terms — potentially ceding swaths of territory in the east of the country. They worry that Putin’s two-hour call with Trump left the U.S. president less willing to help Zelenskyy when they met in Washington last week.

Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán is an ally of Trump who has remained on good terms with Putin throughout the war, to the consternation of other EU leaders. | Thomas Traasahl/EPA

There’s also widespread skepticism among EU diplomats that Putin is at all serious about engaging in peace talks. Many see his offer to meet Trump again as another stalling tactic to buy time while he continues to bombard Ukraine with intensifying missile and drone attacks. 

Making Putin pay

The key initiative that leaders will discuss this week is a plan to exploit €140 billion in frozen Russian assets held in Europe, to provide what officials are calling a “reparations loan” to Ukraine. The money would only be repaid to Moscow in the unlikely event that Russia pays war damages to Ukraine in the future, under the outline proposals European officials have readied. 

Belgium, where the biggest share of these assets is held, has been anxious about the potential reputational damage the country could suffer in the financial sector if the cash deposits are raided. 

Other countries have voiced concerns about the potential risk to the euro’s international credibility and want the U.S. and Japan, among other countries, to adopt similar policies. 

On Thursday, EU leaders are due to decide whether they should formally request that the European Commission draft the detailed legal proposals for creating the reparations loan in full. Officials working on the summit preparations believe Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever will agree to let the Commission, the EU’s executive, go ahead and draw up the legal plan. He would still be able to block it at a later date. 

“We expect the European Council to take a political decision here to use these frozen Russian assets and to mandate the Commission to submit appropriate legislative proposals,” a German government official said.

But the fact that the plan was progressing would again pressure Putin and give Ukraine the hope that the EU would be able to meet its funding needs for two or three more years, diplomats said. “If we send the message that we are willing and able to support Ukraine for the next two or three years, that will enter into their calculations when they’re discussing peace,” one diplomat added. 

Meanwhile, the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas suggested leaders would sign off this week on the bloc’s 19th package of sanctions, designed to hit foreign banks and cryptocurrencies that Russia uses to evade sanctions.

Slovakia’s leader Robert Fico had been holding up the sanctions to protest efforts to shut off the flow of Russian gas, which his country still relies on for energy. Diplomats involved in the negotiations said a deal is now close to secure Fico’s support.

Land grab fears 

The more fundamental anxiety among EU governments is that Trump might be swayed by Putin to pressure Kyiv into giving up land in eastern Ukraine. Trump suggested the war should be frozen on its current territorial lines, with what he said was “78 percent” of the Donbas region in Russian hands.

“You leave it the way it is right now, they can negotiate something later on down the line,” Trump said. 

But the diplomat quoted earlier warned that if Putin wins land, the EU’s Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, among others, will “freak out” and worry that Russia will come for them next. The result would be “a massive rearmament” in many European countries that would upend their internal politics, the diplomat said.

The EU’s Kallas rejected the idea of any peace deal that forced Ukraine to give up Russian-occupied land.

“Everybody says territorial integrity is an important value that we stand for,” Kallas said. “We have to keep to that, because if we just give away the territories then, this gives a message to everybody that you can just use force against your neighbors and get what you want.”