Are America and Europe about to become proxy negotiators for Russia and Ukraine?

European countries have split into three camps on how to respond to Trump turning his back on Ukraine. The Starmer-Meloni-Tusk camp is engaged in wishful thinking that they can change his mind.

Yesterday, just before the start of the emergency summit on Ukraine he convened in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on the BBC that he and French President Emmanuel Macron are going to devise their own parallel peace plan with Ukraine to end the war. They will then “discuss that plan with the United States,” he said. Other European countries may be involved also, he said, probably referring to Poland, Germany or Italy. Asked during his press conference after the summit whether he had gotten Trump’s permission to conduct such peace talks in parallel to the talks currently taking place between Russia and the United States, he said he had called Trump on Saturday to discuss this but did not divulge the result of the phone call.

British officials have declined to say what Trump’s reaction to the idea was, or even whether he indicated he would not stand in the way. But an official suggested to The Guardian newspaper that Starmer didn’t encounter opposition for now. “There is no point in us doing this if the US didn’t feel there was space for that. Clearly we are doing it, so we thought it was a worthwhile exercise.”