Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by Washington’s presentation of a new 28-point plan for ending the war appeared – briefly – to have been stabilised. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, spoke of “substantial progress” after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Vladimir Putin made his countermove: another massive barrage of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.
The sequence of contrasting events captured the grim essence of the outgoing year. By day, diplomatic battles are fought: hopeful statements are issued from Washington, London, Brussels and Kyiv. Immense energy is expended on containing Donald Trump’s initiatives. By night, Putin brutally reminds the world that, for him, war remains the primary tool for achieving “peace”.
As Russia’s attack unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine’s vulnerability was laid bare. Ukraine is able to track missile launches from Russian territory, a capability afforded by timely US intelligence. Outside my window, two Ukrainian air force fighter jets, which had been scrambled to intercept incoming cruise missiles, roared overhead – American F-16s, supplied to Ukraine by one of its European allies.
Moments later, Kyiv’s air-defence systems thundered: two sharp launches fired to intercept a Russian ballistic missile. This was a Patriot system at work, most likely delivered by the US or Germany. Every launch jolts you unexpectedly, shaking the windows. The instant of fear quickly gives way to grim resignation: perhaps the incoming missile won’t strike its target this time, sparing the city from devastation and another blackout.
Soon after, a heavy machine gun opened up on a drone somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – almost certainly a US-made Browning. Unfortunately, the bullets missed the Iranian-made Shahed drone – it pressed on overhead, toward its destination.
With pauses, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the morning news: seven people killed, destruction and heating outages in many homes as a result of the night’s assault. As always, everyone still went about their day – living the war. But those 24 hours encapsulated Ukraine’s critical military reliance on the US – a dependence that Europe is demonstrably unable to fill in the short term.
The 28-point plan from Washington sparked intense emotion, debate and deep concern – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine’s largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after that disastrous meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February, and after the Alaska summit in August.
Every new initiative from Washington unfolds according to the same pattern: a diplomatic cavalry charge against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with other European capitals, manages to fend off. They stabilise the situation but never actually win the battle. This pattern will, no doubt, persist.
It is tempting to accuse Trump of consistently pushing Russia’s terms. But that does not seem to be the whole story. Washington operates on a premise well known to American diplomats: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have lost on the battlefield. The White House presumes that it is impossible to force Russia to relinquish the territory that it already controls in Ukraine’s south or east.
The problem is that while recognising this factual reality, Washington does nothing to deter Moscow, through words or deeds, from thinking that the situation will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Therefore, Putin is convinced that time is on his side – that Ukraine and its partners are approaching exhaustion. His motivation to sign a deal that does not give him the maximum possible gain is close to zero. There may be many attempts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia’s leader remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Zelenskyy believes that Ukraine can still hold out, slowly losing people and territory but avoiding a total frontline collapse until circumstances change in its favour.
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Objectively, there are no real preconditions for a ceasefire. Now, subjective factors are entering the equation: Trump’s desire to broker a ceasefire and pave his way to a Nobel peace prize, and Zelenskyy’s twin challenges – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any US initiative Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their focus does not switch to domestic problems. And although his task will now be much harder after anti-corruption authorities searched the home of his most trusted confidant, Andriy Yermak, it remains highly unlikely that this will change his overall approach.
These two forces are driving the talks.
It took a mere seven days to kill the 28 points of the latest plan. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with the soothing efforts of Rubio, and finally, the leaks about Witkoff, all did their job.
While new plans based on old ideas are imminent, Kyiv, London and other European capitals should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off diplomatic offensives from Washington that are based on Russian demands and reflect Trump’s reluctance to change the course of events, if they stand together and strengthen their defence capabilities at a much faster pace. If they do, neither Trump nor Putin will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine’s ability to repel nightly air assaults will, for the foreseeable future, largely rely on the US.
