Was it really an “excellent” phone call with Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin? Did it signify, as President Donald Trump declared last week, an imminent breakthrough for peace in Ukraine?
The President’s public pronouncements certainly suggested so. Yet behind closed doors, a starkly different mood prevailed.
When President Trump later briefed European leaders, his words met not relief but what reports described as “puzzled silence” and profound consternation. One European diplomat reportedly summarised the sentiment thus: America was “stepping away,” leaving Europe to face the storm alone.
What happened last week was not just the latest failed diplomatic act to bring the Ukraine war to an end. No, it rather marked the culmination of Trump’s transactional foreign policy in his second term – so far.
The implications for Europe and the world are profound.
Look beyond Trump’s optimism and check what the phone call actually delivered. Putin offered no shift from Russia’s maximalist demands: Ukraine’s enforced neutrality and the formal ceding of Crimea and four illegally annexed Ukrainian territories.
No immediate ceasefire was agreed – something the US, Ukraine and the Europeans had previously demanded. In short, Russia conceded nothing.
It gets still worse. Trump privately shared his candid assessment with his European counterparts that Putin harboured no genuine desire for peace. Why? Because Russia, in Putin’s view, was “winning.”
This admission alone was chilling. But Trump then signalled that America might “back away” from mediation, saying the war was a “European situation.” It also seems to mean that he is no longer willing to impose new sanctions on Russia, despite suggesting such a step only a couple of weeks earlier.
The episode last week was shocking. But it should not have been surprising. Trump’s withdrawal from Ukraine has been a long time coming.
Having campaigned on ending the war in “24 hours,” Trump started America’s capitulation when he began directly engaging with Moscow just weeks after his inauguration. That move blindsided European allies. The first Trump-Putin call on February 12 occurred without their consultation.
Then came the hammer blows in quick succession. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine. Vice President JD Vance infamously asserted at Munich that American and European values were no longer aligned. And then, of course, there was that infamous meeting with Zelenskyy at the White House on 28 February.
Ever since these events, the direction of travel had been clear. Intermittent peace talks in Saudi Arabia and Istanbul have achieved little beyond prisoner exchanges.
Even when Trump voiced frustration with Putin in late March, threatening secondary tariffs on any country buying Russian oil if Putin did not cooperate on ending the “bloodbath”, nothing changed. It was just a sliver of false hope for the Europeans before Trump realigned himself with Putin.
Europe is now facing the scenario its political leaders have always dreaded the most.
America under Trump appears to be moving towards re-establishing normal, transactional relations with Russia – potentially even pursuing bilateral trade while Ukraine’s war grinds on. Trump’s explicit discussion with Putin about “largescale TRADE with the United States” while signalling reduced American involvement in the rest of Europe points in this direction.
Trump’s recent threat on Truth Social of 50% tariffs on European imports reveals a president who sees the world through the narrow lens of trade grievances and trade deals rather than strategic partnerships.
The consequences for Ukraine are terrifying. Former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently warned that Ukraine could “lose this war” without American support. President Zelenskyy himself made his concerns explicit: “It’s crucial the United States does not distance itself from the talks and the pursuit of peace.”
And Europe? In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, military expert Gustav Gressel declared that European nations were completely unprepared to fill America’s void in military, financial and intelligence support. Edward Lucas, writing in The Times, was blunter still: without America, European NATO countries are “all but defenceless” in sustained conflict.
Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of US Army Europe, was equally stark in his assessment. Speaking to German newspaper Bild last week, he warned that America’s abandonment of Ukraine would constitute “a real betrayal of our allies who have supported us for decades.” Hodges dismissed Trump’s approach as a “catastrophic mistake” that demonstrated “a very superficial understanding” of America’s strategic interests.
All that is bad enough, yet a darker scenario looms. What if an emboldened Russia, interpreting American retrenchment as an open invitation, tests NATO’s Article V, requiring all members to respond if any is attacked?
If Russia achieves its aims in Ukraine, will that be the end of Putin’s revisionist ambitions? Gressel thinks not, warning that “after Ukraine, the Europeans would be next,” pointing to Russia’s Baltic Sea activities as deliberate probing of NATO unity.
The Kremlin’s information warfare is already laying the groundwork. Consider a controversial book on Lithuanian history published by a Moscow state institute in March. It even had a foreword contributed by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself.
The publication fundamentally challenges Lithuanian statehood and language distinctiveness. The rhetoric is familiar. It echoes Putin’s 2021 essay denying Ukrainian sovereignty – the ideological prelude to invasion. We know what happened next.
For the Baltics, a future Russian aggression is not abstract theorising but a clear and present danger. As I wrote in a previous column, Russia might leverage military exercises or manufacture a crisis around the Suwałki corridor, a narrow strip of Russian territory between Lithuania and Poland. This would challenge NATO’s resolve precisely when US commitment is in doubt.
Would America come to Europe’s aid in such a scenario? Given current circumstances, the question is almost rhetorical: Obviously, it would not.
The very next day after Trump’s call, Europe pressed ahead with new sanctions against Russia without Washington. So, Europe is now alone – and not only Europe.
America’s withdrawal from its traditional role risks unravelling the entire global security architecture that has largely contained great power conflict for decades.
A new, more dangerous era has arrived.
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