With America Disengaging From Ukraine Peace Push, Europe Turns to Plan B

Hours after President Trump announced that America is bailing out of Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Europe turned to Plan B. Britain and the European Union announced new sanctions on Russia. Germany moved ahead with its new plan to build Europe’s largest army. “We have seen massive [Russian] attacks again in recent days. … These speak louder than the lip service [to peace] we have heard for so long,” Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, said Tuesday before a meeting of EU defense and foreign affairs ministers in Brussels. “Putin is clearly playing for time, unfortunately we have to say Putin is not really interested in peace.”The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, took a similar line, saying: “When Vladimir Putin continues to uphold his hypocritical language, everyone has understood that he will carry on with his colonial war to the end if we do not put a stop to it. Let us push Vladimir Putin to put an end to his imperialist fantasy by adopting sanctions that are truly dissuasive.”After the American and Russian presidents talked for two hours on the phone Monday, Mr. Trump made no mention of a tough Russia sanctions bill that enjoys majority support in the Senate. Instead, he posted on Truth Social about economic possibilities: “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic bloodbath is over and I agree.” Asked by reporters Tueday about sanctions, Mr. Trump replied: “We’re looking at a lot of things, but we’ll see.”Mr. Putin promised Monday to work with Ukraine on drawing up a memorandum to sketch out a future peace accord. The Kremlin spokesman told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday: “There is no time frame — and can be none.” A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, urged Ukraine to work on the memorandum for the sake of its own “self-preservation.” On Monday, the Kremlin insisted again that a peace accord must deal with the “root causes” of the war. This code phrase refers to Ukraine’s turn to the West, and its wish to join NATO and the European Union.“In a certain sense, Putin is even right — to end the war in Europe, we really do need to eliminate its ‘root causes,’” an exiled Russian politician, Illia Ponomarenko, wrote Tuesday on X. “It’s just that the true ‘root causes’ aren’t the existence of Ukraine as a state and as identity, as Russian war propaganda insinuates, but rather the existence of modern Russia itself — a country where, under the complacent gaze of weak Western democracies, a fascist, oligarchic regime has flourished.”In comments this week, Mr. Putin has not mentioned Mr. Trump’s two-month-old demand for a cease-fire. On March 11, Ukraine accepted this 30-day cease-fire proposal.Europe’s moves Tuesday reflect a growing sense that its countries increasingly are on their own to face a militaristic Russia. Without waiting for further action by Washington, London and Brussels adopted new measures that they say will zero in on Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and the companies that help finance Russia’s war against Ukraine. While Mr. Trump talks about future business deals with Russia, European leaders increasingly are combative.“We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia — an immediate cease-fire without preconditions,” Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said Tuesday at Brussels. As Russia did not accept a cease-fire, “we will have to react,” he said. “We also expect our U.S. allies not to tolerate this.”Tuesday’s EU sanctions more than double the number of Russia’s shadow fleet oil tankers on a Western black list, to 324. Next week, at a Group of 7 finance minister meeting in Canada, the EU plans to lower the price cap of internationally traded Russian oil. Ukraine wants the price cap to be cut in half, to $30. The EU is expected to ask for a 20 percent cut. The largest contributor to Russian government revenues, oil and gas exports covered about a third of the government budget.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, wrote on X: “It’s time to intensify the pressure on Russia to bring about the ceasefire.”Similarly, Britain announced new sanctions Tuesday on 100 new Russian military, energy, and financial targets. The British foreign minister, David Lammy, promised: “Delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin’s war machine.” Downing Street said that Prime Minister Starmer called President Zelensky Tuesday and both leaders agreed it is “vital to keep the pressure on Russia while they continued their illegal invasion of Ukraine.”Prime Minister Meloni of Italy said Tuesday that Pope Leo confirmed to her his willingness to host in the Vatican the next round of negotiations to try to end the war.Question marks hang over the future of American military aid to Ukraine, a retired Australian army general, Mick Ryan, worries Tuesday: “With the U.S. administration largely walking away from the peace talks and appearing to dump them on the Vatican, what might this mean for American assistance for Ukraine? Will the United States continue to deliver aid promised by the Biden administration, and will Ukraine be able to purchase arms and equipment that it cannot source from its own manufacturing industry or Europe?”Since Russia’s invasion of 2022, hundreds of American companies have sold their Russia operations at deep discounts. Now, in an about-face, “Trump wants to get back to doing business with Russia,” a Russia financial analyst, Timothy Ash, writes Tuesday from London. “The USG is already going around asking for advice on the state of the Russian business environment. They can only surely be asking that as they are preparing to be advising US business.”On the political side, a large majority of senators back a new American sanctions bill. On Tuesday, Secretary Rubio got a largely hostile reception when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, charged: “You’ve teamed up with President Trump to throw the Ukrainian people under the bus, and have been played like a fiddle by Vladimir Putin.”In response, Mr. Rubio said: “The president … believes that right now, you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking. And there’s value in us being able to talk and drive them to get to the table. We’ll see.”

With America Disengaging From Ukraine Peace Push, Europe Turns to Plan B

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