Trump-Zelensky summit: Eurosquad can breathe a sigh of relief on Ukraine for now

The Eurosquad can breathe a sigh of relief – for now.

The gang of European leaders deftly flattered Donald Trump but carefully outlined their expectations and demands as they steered the freewheeling US President back on course, following his alarming deference to Russian president Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week.

President Volodymyr Zelensky represented Ukraine with distinction, avoiding a second Oval Office showdown, even joking with the MAGA-supporting reporter who chided him in February for not wearing a suit to the White House.

“You are in the same suit,” Mr Zelensky told Brian Glenn, who is also the partner of the firebrand MAGA Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“I’ve changed. You have not,” he said. Even Mr Trump laughed.

Mercifully, JD Vance, who started the fight last time, did not speak.

According to the Financial Times, Kyiv came offering a proposal for a $US100 billion arms deal that would be funded by Europe. The report said half of these funds could go towards making drones, a military technology US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth wants the Pentagon to turbocharge in producing.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Mr Zelensky also worked in tandem to raise the issue of returning the Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russians, by employing artful flattery of Melania Trump.

The First Lady penned a letter to Mr Putin on the topic, which Mr Trump released on the weekend. Mr Zelensky in turn handed Mr Trump a letter from Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, thanking Ms Trump for her advocacy. Mr Trump was grateful and later posted on social media about the topic.

Another sign of progress was that Mr Trump appeared to accept that territorial discussions were for Ukraine and Russia to negotiate. If this holds, this is an important departure from his former position of forcing Ukraine to potentially give up unoccupied land in the Donetsk region to Russia. Ukraine retains control over one-third of the region, but Mr Putin wants it for free and for Mr Trump to force and facilitate the transaction.

The August summit was extraordinary in every sense. European leaders abandoned their summer holidays and rushed to the White House, which had to prepare for hosting eight world leaders in 48 hours.

Their efforts and very public embrace of Ukraine paid off.

However, because, it is the vacillating Donald Trump, the painstaking advances gained on Monday could simply evaporate in a similar reversal to what’s likely being experienced by Mr Putin, after what initially appeared to be a victory for the Russian in Alaska on Friday.

Mr Trump appears to crave European flattery and validation, but it remains to be seen whether he seeks it more from Mr Zelesnky’s Euro backers than Mr Putin.

The real test is not nice words being said in the White House’s East Room or the parading of Ukraine’s wartime leader for the world’s cameras in the Oval Office.

Underneath the warm displays in the White House lies an inherent contradiction within the Trump Administration about the security guarantee that is needed and will be provided to Ukraine.

This guarantee has to be strong enough to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine once more. It cannot be a rinse and repeat of previous, now-failed promises and assurances made to Ukraine, such as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

Italy’s Georgia Meloni has led the charge for an “Article-5-model” guarantee, “to be sure that it won’t happen again, which is the precondition for condition for any peace.”

Article 5 is the clause inherent to NATO, which says that an attack on one member nation shall be considered an attack on all.

Given that the Trump Administration has stopped funding military aid for Ukraine, preferring instead to let the Europeans buy weapons on Kyiv’s behalf, it is an enormous leap to expect the United States under MAGA would fight for Ukraine against Putin.

Nevertheless, Mr Trump has been adamant that the United States will provide security guarantees both on his call with European leaders in the lead-up to his meeting with the Eurosquad and in public.

“We’ll help them out with that, and I think it’s very important, I think it’s very important to get the deal done,” Mr Trump told reporters while sitting alongside Mr Zelensky.

Asked if he would deploy US peacekeepers or troops in Ukraine, Mr Trump said he may let reporters know after his meetings. But there was no definitive military commitment by the time the European leaders were jetting out late Monday evening.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said as he departed: “All the details to be hammered out over coming days.”

However, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who was one of the first to propose Western troops in Ukraine and a co-author of the Coalition of the Willing, has begun to link the two.

Mr Macron, on NBC, said it represented great progress “that the US is willing to be part of this.”

On the weekend, Mr Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff boasted that he had secured Mr Putin’s endorsement of this style of security guarantee, something he described as a game-changer.

But for as long as the Trump Administration requires Russia’s veto for what sort of security Ukraine’s allies provide Kyiv, any security guarantee will be fragile.

The Kremlin can easily play spoiler. Mr Trump wants to coordinate a trilateral meeting with Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin as the next step.

Mr Trump broke from his meeting with the European leaders to phone Mr Putin for 40 minutes. Mr Zelensky said Russia had proposed to the US President a bilateral meeting first, which Ukraine would accept.

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin was lukewarm in its official comments.

Mr Putin’s adviser Yuri Ushakov, who was in Alaska for the Trump-Putin meeting, told Russian state media TASS: “They discussed the idea of considering the possibility of increasing the level of the Russian and Ukrainian representatives involved in the direct talks.”

“A diplomatic meeting at the level of leaders is such a step. If the Russian side does not take it, Ukraine will ask the United States to act accordingly,” Mr Zelensky said.

This scenario would be the real test of Mr Trump’s commitment to brokering peace. The US President has been all talk so far when it comes to using pressure and force on Russia and has veered wildly from being pally with Mr Zelensky to demanding that Kyiv cede unoccupied land to Russia.

In the only slightly brittle moment, Mr Trump pushed back on Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz — the last man standing in urging an immediate ceasefire, something which was once the US President’s key demand.

After Alaska, it has been all but abandoned, meaning Mr Putin has more time to continue murdering and obstructing.

While France is pushing for sanctions should Mr Trump’s diplomatic entreaties fail, this path also appears to be fading away.

Mr Trump, who claimed on the campaign trail that he would end the war within 24 hours, made an interesting admission as he convened the seven leaders, conceding that resolving the Ukraine war had proved harder than he thought.

“I thought this was going to be one of the easier ones, it’s actually one of the most difficult, very complex,” he said.

Another great danger is that Mr Putin banks on Mr Trump’s short attention span and frustrates the process long enough for the US President to give up altogether.