Europe, US rift over Ukraine widens despite new arms spending

As Europe moves closer to meeting Washington’s demands on defence, trans-Atlantic mistrust is growing over Ukraine talks

France's President Emmanuel Macron addresses the media during crisis talks in Brussels this week. Picture: AFP

European leaders this week took their biggest steps toward rearming the continent since the Cold War. But their efforts to leverage that to influence Washington’s approach to ending the war in Ukraine appear to be falling flat so far — fuelling trans-Atlantic mistrust.

In the space of 12 hours in Berlin and Brussels on Tuesday, European leaders unveiled proposals for hundreds of billions of euros worth of additional military spending in coming years, paid for by increased borrowing.

The plans, which still need approval, are the most dramatic demonstration yet that European leaders recognise that the era of the peace dividend is dead and that the threat posed by Russia to European security is growing.

“Putin’s Russia is testing our limits in the air, in the sea and on our screens. It violates our borders to kill its opponents,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address on Wednesday. “Who can believe Russia will stop at Ukraine?”

On Tuesday, the European Union unveiled plans that the bloc hopes could increase military spending by 800 billion euros by decade’s end. The same day, Friedrich Merz, the man in line to become Germany’s next chancellor, announced that Germany’s strict fiscal rules would no longer apply to military spending, paving the way for a rapid acceleration in the country’s rearmament. Britain and Denmark have both raised their planned military spending in the last couple of weeks.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky shakes hands with European leaders Picture: AFP

Yet while Europe is starting to show signs of finally accepting Washington’s call to take the main responsibility for its defence, the gulf between Western allies on Ukraine has grown wider than ever despite a flurry of recent diplomatic efforts to persuade Trump to bolster Ukraine to improve its negotiation position for any talks with Russia.

The shockwaves of the past couple of weeks are still resonating in Europe. There was open astonishment at the angry clash between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. The US suspension of military aid and of some intelligence sharing with Ukraine deepened the shock. Europe broke with the US in the U.N. after Washington pushed a resolution, which laid no blame on Moscow for the war, through the U.N. Security Council with Russia and China’s backing.

A week after flying to Washington for what appeared to be a convivial meeting to co-ordinate approaches to the war in Ukraine, Macron was left warning his compatriots this week that “the future of Europe cannot be decided in Moscow or Washington.” After the clash between Trump and Zelensky, Merz accused the White House of orchestrating a “manufactured escalation” with Ukraine.

At Thursday’s emergency summit of EU leaders, the differences between the Western allies on Ukraine appeared unbridgeable.

While Trump was telling reporters at the White House he doubted that the US’s European partners would come to its defence in a crisis, European leaders dismissed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s push to recognise the US president’s peace initiative in a statement they were drafting on Ukraine. Leaders gathered around the table in Brussels said the direction of Trump’s peace efforts was so unclear they couldn’t endorse it.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office. Picture: Getty

EU leaders agreed to urgently step up military aid for Ukraine, earmarking further air-defence systems, ammunition and missiles. Non-EU countries are following suit. Norway said this week it was doubling its support for Ukraine this year, adding $8 billion in spending.

On at least one issue, the EU and Trump differences appeared to be narrowing. EU leaders have called for further economic pressure on Russia, and Trump said on Friday he was weighing broad banking sanctions and tariffs on Moscow until a peace deal is struck.

But European leaders say that Trump’s peace-through-strength approach can best be achieved by siding with Ukraine to force Russia into concessions. US officials argue that Zelensky needs first to be serious about seeking a ceasefire and that a peace agreement can only be reached if Washington takes the role of a neutral mediator between the two parties.

They argue that pouring billions more dollars in coming years into Ukraine’s military will at best just reinforce a military stalemate and that only Trump has a realistic plan for ending the war.

“We have spent three years calling Vladimir Putin names,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday. “The point that we’re at now is we are trying to get the man to a [negotiating] table.”

Perhaps the most consequential rift lies in European capitals’ push for a US backstop for any military mission they deploy to Ukraine to secure a peace deal. Trump has ruled out any US security guarantee for Ukraine but European officials are doubtful that a broad coalition of the willing can win political backing to place troops in Ukraine without some US protection.

Yet Trump’s answer is that the only commitment he will give to Ukraine for now at least is a minerals deal, which he says would place Americans on the ground and dissuade future Russian aggression.

“I think once we make the agreement, that’s going to be 95% of it,” Trump said during the meeting with Zelensky last week. “They’re not going to go back to fighting.”

Some European officials say they haven’t given up hope of persuading Washington to offer some commitment to back up European forces in Ukraine if they come under fire from a renewed Russian attack there. They hope Washington might come on board if the warring parties move toward some form of ceasefire.

They believe they have at least some leverage because without European forces and the continent’s financial support for Kyiv, Ukraine could collapse on Trump’s watch. And they are sceptical that Putin will negotiate in good faith — potentially forcing Trump to turn to the kind of pressure tactics on Moscow they hope for.

Putin said on Thursday that the Kremlin will make no concessions on its war aims in Ukraine. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, dismissed the idea of European peacekeepers in Ukraine under a deal. On Friday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said what it called the militarisation of the EU was a topic of “deep concern” to the Kremlin, which might require “appropriate measures in response to ensure our security.”

Yet, if Trump doesn’t budge, European leaders will face an agonising choice of leaving Kyiv without any Western security protection on the ground or taking a major gamble of placing forces in harm’s way. Meanwhile, they face a race against the clock to build up their own military strength to rearm at home and fortify Ukraine’s future defence capabilities to deter a Russian military and defence-industry build-up that shows no sign of abating.

“If Europe can actually summon the political will to fully deliver the enormous economic and industrial potential in Europe, which dwarfs Russia’s, and deliver the support to Ukraine they’re capable of delivering … Ukraine will win,” or at least be in a much better position, said retired US Army Gen. Ben Hodges, who used to command US land forces in Europe.

The Wall Street Journal