Trump’s Ukraine Gambit: A Victory for Russia, A Disaster for Europe

Europe’s main challenge is not a lack of military capability, but a failure of mindset.

Picture: White House / Shealah Craighead

Yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on social media that he had a “highly productive” call with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the war in Ukraine. From a European perspective, Trump's framing—flattering Putin while speaking over the heads of Ukrainians—reads like a worst-case scenario.

Early hopes that Trump might actually increase pressure on Russia now seem greatly misplaced. More than ever, the American president appears determined to settle the war as quickly as possible, even if it means overriding Ukraine’s interests and those of America’s European allies.

While Trump sees a “deal” to resolve a geopolitical nuisance and score political points at home, Europeans—and, most importantly, Ukrainians—face an outcome that may shape their security environment for years and decades to come, with potentially disastrous consequences for the continent.

The problem with the American peace plan, as it stands—allowing Russia to retain captured territory since February 2022 while gradually lifting sanctions—is that it pressures Ukraine into a settlement that preserves much of Russia’s power and rewards its imperial ambitions, all while the U.S. pulls back from the European continent. Under these conditions, a follow-on war in Ukraine within the next five years, whether to seize more territory or to assert political control over Kyiv, seems almost inevitable.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Politically, the U.S. has every right to step away from its leadership role in Europe and embrace isolationism. But it is Europe’s responsibility to prevent an outcome where an emboldened Russia retains both the means and the incentive to continue its aggression.

At this point, it should also be clear that any deal with Putin’s Russia that requires any kind of trust between the parties is effectively worthless. Putin betrayed the European security architecture by invading Georgia in 2008, shattered it by seizing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine in 2014, and has obliterated it since February 2022. Unless Russian society itself demands and implements fundamental internal changes, any lasting peace in Europe will have to be maintained against Russia, not with it.

The search for a desperate settlement at all costs is also greatly premature. On a strategic level, the overall balance of power remains far more favorable to Ukraine, even under conditions where the United States withdraws its assistance entirely.

The EU’s GDP alone is ten times that of Russia. Europe’s industrial output—and even more so its potential—dwarfs anything Russia can sustain. While Russia’s war industry is running at full capacity, its economy is simultaneously overheating from inflation and collapsing under record-high interest rates and corporate debt. In contrast, Europe’s industrial giants, particularly Germany, are only now beginning to take off their gloves—though still much too slow and much too timid.

Keeping this reality in mind is important when talking about Ukraine’s need to settle. Ukraine will not "lose" this war—defined as capitulating to most or all of Russia’s demands—because Russia outcompetes or outguns it. The only scenario in which Ukraine loses is if it determines that the costs of continued resistance outweigh the costs of concession. That is a political decision, not a material inevitability.

If necessary, Ukraine could even sustain a drawn-out insurgency, turning the war into a supercharged Vietnam for Russia, also in the absence of U.S. and broader European support. That is a horrible scenario and Europe should do everything in its power that Ukraine does not have to resort to such measures, but the notion that Ukraine’s defeat is a function of military exhaustion is deeply misguided.

Europe’s minimum theory of victory for Ukraine should be to make clear to Russia that, regardless of how long the war lasts, European support will sustain Ukraine’s resistance. As long as Ukraine is not left to fight alone, time works against Russia—something Moscow fully understands, which is why it is so eager to convince the West that Ukraine’s situation is hopeless.

What this episode demonstrates more than anything is that, in the face of American withdrawal, Europe’s main challenge is not a lack of military capability—though that is a factor—but a failure of mindset. The real problem is Europe’s complete inability and unwillingness to define its own interests and ensure they are pursued. The continent behaves like a spoiled young adult, unaccustomed to thinking for itself, now forced to confront reality.

But whether we like it or not, reality has caught up. Europe now faces a choice: stand up to Russia in Ukraine or risk facing it on the battlefield. The more Russia is allowed to gain from an unjust and unwarranted peace deal, potentially dictated by an isolationist America, the more likely the latter outcome becomes.