Thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, resonated powerfully this year thousands of miles away from U.S. shores: in war-battered, war-weary Ukraine.
Ukrainians didn’t exactly celebrate. But they did breathe a huge, collective sigh of relief.
That’s because only days earlier, President Donald Trump’s latest push for a peace deal had produced a 28-point plan clearly rewarding Russia – politically, territorially, and economically – for its unprovoked invasion and nearly four-year devastation of Ukraine.
Why We Wrote This
Behind the confusion surrounding different Ukraine peace plans, America’s European allies are afraid that the postwar Atlantic alliance could be at stake.
And Mr. Trump had set Thanksgiving Day as a deadline for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept that or lose vital U.S. security and intelligence assistance.
Now, the day of reckoning has been averted. Or at least delayed.
Citing “tremendous progress,” Mr. Trump announced on Tuesday that he was sending his envoys for further talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Mr. Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Still, however those talks go, the diplomatic scramble since the 28-point plan became public late last week has underscored the wider and deeper international stakes involved in the outcome.
It might best be described as a “test of the West.”
The shape of any eventual peace will likely determine the future shape of the Atlantic alliance that has bound Washington and its democratic allies in Europe together since the Second World War.
Washington excluded its NATO and European Union partners from Mr. Trump’s new push for peace in Ukraine. Staunch supporters of Kyiv, they were alarmed by the prospect of a U.S.-backed deal skewed toward the aggressor, Russia, and leaning on Kyiv to fall in line.
America’s allies were unsettled by more than the details of the 28-point plan.
At a deeper level, they sensed that the plan implied a fundamental difference with the Trump administration over the cause of the war, the future threat of an emboldened Kremlin, and the long-term dangers for the security of Europe’s democracies.
Their hope now is that a Western consensus, rooted in a shared desire for a durable peace agreement, can be restored.
European leaders and diplomats played a critical role in fending off Washington’s sprint for a Thanksgiving deal. Coordinating with Kyiv, they helped draw up amendments to the 28-point plan that were discussed with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Geneva earlier this week.
The new 19-point draft proposes deferring key Russian demands, especially the surrender of further Ukrainian territory and limits to allied security support for Ukraine. Those questions would be left for talks between Mr. Trump and Ukraine’s president.
Now, in the breathing space afforded by the U.S. envoys’ talks in Moscow and Kyiv, the Europeans are intensifying their efforts to convince Mr. Trump that they can help him achieve the peace deal he has spent 10 frustrating months trying to deliver.
Leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and the EU have publicly praised Mr. Trump for his fresh attempt to negotiate a peace agreement. They have been emphasizing key areas of agreement on its likely shape, including de facto acceptance of Russia’s control over the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine that its forces have occupied.
They now seem to be looking for ways to reformulate parts of the 28-point plan in ways that do not reward Mr. Putin simply for calling off his drone and missile attacks, and ordering the guns to fall silent.
One example is the proposed reentry of Russia into the G7 group of advanced industrialized nations.
That is something European leaders currently find unthinkable. Yet they are suggesting that such a move could be made contingent on Russia honoring any peace deal.
Regarding Ukraine’s future security, they have helped convince Ukraine to accept a limit on the future size of the country’s armed forces – but setting it at 800,000 instead of the 600,000 originally suggested.
And with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron taking the lead, they are pressing the need to guarantee Ukraine’s security against future Russian aggression – in part through a European “coalition of the willing” that could provide a peacekeeping force with U.S. intelligence and logistical backup.
Their view is that if Mr. Putin really wants peace, Mr. Trump could make that happen, and that the Russian leader would be able to argue that he had won lasting control over all the land his forces have taken.
But the key issue – and a critical test for the Western alliance – is the Europeans’ insistence that any postwar arrangement be built on a clear recognition that Russia started the conflict, and that Ukraine was the victim of an invasion intended to topple its government and seize its territory.
That is at the core of concerted European overtures to Mr. Trump and his key diplomats.
One passing reference that the United States president made earlier this week may help explain their concern.
It came as part of Mr. Trump’s now-familiar insistence that if he, rather than former President Joe Biden, had been in charge in 2022, Russia’s invasion would never have happened.
But the president made no mention of the invasion. And his turn of phrase was telling.
He described the conflict as “the Ukraine war with Russia.”
