Over the weekend, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that Europe had developed “pretty precise plans” for military deployments to guarantee Ukraine’s security after a peace deal. “We have a clear road map,” von der Leyen told the Financial Times. “This work is going forward very well.”
Other European leaders appear to disagree. On Monday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said it was “fundamentally wrong” to discuss troop deployments to Ukraine prior to peace negotiations. “The European Union has no responsibilities and no competences when it comes to deploying troops — for anyone or for anything,” Pistorius told reporters.
The sharp rebuke puts a spotlight on divides within Europe over how to ensure Ukraine’s long-term security in the event of a possible peace deal with Russia. Even as European leaders met in Paris Thursday to nail down proposals for deployments, significant doubts remained about countries’ willingness to put their troops on the line to defend Ukraine.
Among Europe’s most powerful states, France and Britain have so far seemed the most keen to participate in a “reassurance force” that could train and advise Ukraine’s military while stationed in the country. Turkey is also weighing whether to send troops, but Poland and Germany have shown little interest in doing the same, leaving smaller countries like Estonia and Lithuania to attempt to fill the gap. It is unclear whether these offers will be sufficient to create a large enough standing force to protect Ukraine—a force that would need between 10,000 and 100,000 soldiers to be effective, according to estimates from military analysts.
Hanging over all of this discussion is the question of whether the U.S. is willing to throw its weight behind security guarantees. Senior U.S. officials have reportedly told their European counterparts that Washington could help coordinate guarantees and provide intelligence and command and control assistance, but President Trump has avoided promising any form of direct U.S. intervention.
This points to a core challenge for Western states seeking a lasting end to the war in Ukraine. Much as Western leaders have long insisted that Ukraine would join NATO despite knowing that Germany and the U.S. would likely veto such a move, European leaders are now throwing their support behind a “reassurance force” despite knowing that Trump is unwilling to provide a security guarantee to back it up.
As the Financial Times reported last week, “European officials have privately admitted that any deployment could only take place with US support to enable, oversee and protect European troops.”
Meanwhile, Russian officials insisted this week that any deployment of European troops to Ukraine would be “fundamentally unacceptable,” further dampening hopes that such a force could be part of a deal to end the war. But, in a move that surprised some observers, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia has “never objected” to the idea of Ukraine joining the European Union.
Ukrainian membership in the EU could provide a compromise that would be palatable to the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine, argued George Beebe of the Quincy Institute in Responsible Statecraft. EU accession would “promote Ukraine’s sovereignty, prosperity, and societal healing” while offering “hope for persuading Ukraine’s citizens that a compromise peace settlement is worth the blood they have sacrificed over the past three years,” Beebe wrote.
But significant obstacles stand in the way of Ukrainian membership in the EU. Kyiv has struggled to meet basic requirements for joining the bloc, including rules aimed at fighting corruption and protecting the rule of law. Large constituencies in France and Poland also fear that admitting Ukraine to the EU will drive local farmers out of business by allowing Ukraine’s agriculture industry to undercut prices. These challenges, in addition to skepticism from Hungary, may help explain why German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in July that Ukraine was unlikely to join the EU at any point in the next decade.
In the end, peace will require a step that has so far proved impossible: getting European leaders to make a collective decision about how far they are willing to go to defend Ukraine.
In other news related to the war in Ukraine:
A gunman disguised as a courier assassinated Andriy Parubiy, the former speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, in Lviv on Saturday. Ukrainian officials claimed without providing evidence that Russia was involved in Parubiy’s murder. The assassin denied working with Moscow and insisted that the killing was an act of “personal revenge against the Ukrainian authorities,” according to CNN.
During a press conference in Beijing, Putin said he would be willing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Moscow, the Guardian reports. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Putin of acting in bad faith and described the suggestion as “unacceptable,” adding that “at least seven countries are ready to host a meeting between leaders of Ukraine and Russia” and that Zelensky “is ready for such a meeting at any point of time.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he expects that peace negotiations with Ukraine will continue, adding that Russian and Ukrainian negotiators remain in direct contact, according to Reuters. “For peace to be durable, the new territorial realities ... must be recognized and formalized in international legal terms,” Lavrov said, reiterating Russia’s insistence on holding onto its battlefield gains in Ukraine.
Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom announced that Russia and China agreed to build a major new natural gas pipeline between the two countries, Reuters reports. The news, which came out as Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday, could mark a major diplomatic and economic win for Moscow as it seeks to reorient its economy away from Europe and toward Asia. But energy experts argue that this week’s announcement may be a smaller step than Russia would like it to seem, with one telling Axios that agreeing on a price for the gas will be a “major, major challenge.”
From the State Department:
There were no State Department press briefings this week.
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