The Daily Populous Monday August 18th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by frenchdispatch.eu and submitted by Yamakuzy

AI Generated image of the European leaders taking part in today’s meeting

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Now, we’ve already done a deep dive into Donald Trump’s mess of a negotiation in Alaska, where he gave Russian President Vladimir Putin the red carpet treatment in exchange for god knows what ideas regarding an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, without diving back into the problems regarding this diplomatic tryst, which you can read in the above summary and analysis, today will see another major meeting taking place regarding peace in Ukraine:

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is travelling to Washington DC for what may prove to be one of the most important meetings of his presidency, and potentially even modern history.

However, despite the fears many held regarding the potential ambush Zelenskyy was walking into, with his humiliation at the hands of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the far-right media landscape, things may prove to be more positive.

Because, after meetings in Berlin and Brussels, it has been decided that the political heavyweights of Europe: Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, Alexander Stubb, Giorgia Meloni and Marc Rutte, accompanied by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, will be joining Zelenskyy.

The ultimate goal? For Team Europe, including the leaders of the European Commission and NATO, to stand by Zelenskyy’s side, support him in the face of Donald Trump’s ‘diplomacy’, and to ensure that Ukraine is not abandoned by Washington.

The tableau could hardly be more deliberate, and the image will be one of Europe gathering behind Ukraine at the very moment Trump seeks to recast America’s role in the war.

For Zelenskyy, the message is clear: he is not walking into the lion’s den alone. For Trump, the message is an even clearer reminder that whatever arrangements he might be tempted to reach with Vladimir Putin, Europe has a voice, a stake, in the peace proceedings, and a coalition of the willing that intends to be involved.

Europe’s leaders have not been shy about the symbolism. French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking late on Sunday evening, declared: “Our aim tomorrow is to present a united front between Europeans and Ukrainians, reaffirming who is on the side of peace and international law. The security of Europeans and of France is at stake.”

From Berlin, according to Politico, government spokesman Stefan Kornelius laid out the stakes with characteristic precision: “The purpose of Monday’s Oval Office visit is to exchange information with … Trump following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.” Kornelius added that “Chancellor Merz will discuss the status of peace efforts with the heads of state and government and emphasise Germany’s interest in a quick peace agreement in Ukraine.”

Von der Leyen, in a carefully crafted statement, echoed the sentiment. “At the request of President Zelenskyy, I will join the meeting with President Trump and other European leaders in the White House tomorrow.” The declaration followed her virtual hosting of Zelenskyy in Brussels for a summit of the Coalition of the Willing, the informal grouping of European states most determined to keep Ukraine armed, funded and diplomatically protected.

It will also be a chance for Von der Leyen to repair her reputation after the damage incurred during the EU-US trade agreement, which nobody can agree whether it was hypothetical, concrete, a vibe, or just hot air.

In other words, Europe is not merely present as a backdrop. Its leaders are inserting themselves into the heart of the negotiation, or at least into the room where decisions will be gestured at, if not yet finalised.

It’s absolutely clear that the meeting in Alaska last Friday hangs like a storm cloud over Washington. Donald Trump emerged from his talks with Putin proclaiming that the two sides had agreed “on many points”; only what these points were remains a confusing mystery with many claims.

Whatever those points were, a ceasefire wasn’t one of them, and the peace negotiation without a plan led to no framework being revealed. There was only the vague insistence that “great progress” had been made in the midst of Putin’s fawning manipulation of the American president.

For Zelenskyy, this ambiguity will be intolerable, and for Europe, it is dangerous. What began as a planned bilateral with the Ukrainian president has been reframed by the White House as the opening act in a possible three-way negotiation with Russia. The shift may seem procedural, but its implications are vast.

Putin continues to refuse any direct meetings with Zelenskyy, and this alone undermines Trump’s ambition to stage-manage a historic handshake that will earn him the Nobel Peace Prize he is so desperate for.

Yet despite Vladimir Putin’s maximalist demands and his lack of negotiating in good faith, the U.S. president seems determined to portray himself as the indispensable broker of peace, a role that appeals both to his vanity and his desire to dominate the narrative of the war.

European diplomats, acutely aware of what such manoeuvres might mean, have scrambled to ensure Zelenskyy is not cornered. As one put it bluntly, their task is to guarantee that “key red lines are not crossed”, shorthand for preventing a settlement that would force Ukraine into damaging territorial concessions.

Zelenskyy Says No to Putin’s Donbas Demand

Those fears are not theoretical. Reuters reported on Sunday that Trump relayed a proposal from Putin offering to “freeze most front lines” if Kyiv surrendered all of Donetsk Oblast, including the heavily fortified areas not currently under Russian control.

“Zelenskyy rejected the demand, the source said,” Reuters noted.

The report underscores why Europe has rallied to Washington. The idea that Ukraine might be strong-armed into trading away unoccupied territory that is rich in minerals, fortified by defensive positions that would provide an excellent staging post for future Russian invasions, and symbolically central to Kyiv’s claim of sovereignty, is precisely the nightmare scenario Europe is determined to prevent.

The New York Times confirmed that Zelenskyy and Europe’s leaders are united in their opposition. The Donbas region is not negotiable.

Trump’s Alaska meeting ended without agreement, yet he insisted afterwards that he and Putin had reached an understanding on territory. “President Zelenskyy has to agree,” he said, as if the Ukrainian leader were a footnote to a conversation between great men.

Bloomberg has since reported that Putin continues to demand Ukraine’s withdrawal from the whole of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In return, Russia would renounce claims to parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson it does not currently control, effectively freezing the front. Trump has told both Zelenskyy and European leaders that Putin is ready to discuss an end to the war rather than a temporary pause, which he not only believes but sees as a preferable solution.

Shortly after the Alaska summit, Trump spoke first with Zelenskyy and then with the leaders of Europe. Within hours, Zelenskyy announced he would travel to Washington to meet the U.S. president on 18 August. The urgency was plain.

Trump Pushes His Own Peace Narrative

Trump has cast himself as the would-be architect of peace. On Saturday, following a joint call with Zelenskyy and Europe’s leaders, he declared: “It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”

He also suggested that the United States could provide security guarantees to Ukraine as part of such a deal, which would signal a breakthrough following months of diplomatic pressure by European leaders and diplomats.

For Friedrich Merz, this was a welcome signal. “The good news is that America is ready to participate in such security guarantees and is not leaving it to the Europeans alone,” he told German media.

For Berlin, and indeed for much of Europe, the fear has long been that Washington would disengage, leaving them to shoulder the burden alone. Trump’s comments suggest the opposite: a willingness to reassert American influence in Europe’s security order, though always on his terms and likely with strict costs, as always.

Keeping Ukraine’s Voice in the Room

Even if the mood music seems positive, the anxieties run deep. European leaders are haunted by the spectre of February, when a chaotic and grossly offensive Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy left relations severely frayed for months. The prospect of another diplomatic ambush, this time with even higher stakes, is why Macron, Merz, Starmer and the others have insisted on being physically present.

For them, they don’t simply fear failure, but rather the sacrificing of Ukraine on the altar of Russian and American imperialism. They fear a deal either struck over Ukraine’s head, or one Zelenskyy would be forced into, that would reshape the continent’s security architecture for decades to come.

A frozen conflict in which Russia holds all of Donetsk and Luhansk would not be peace. It would be a recipe for renewed aggression, a “temporary settlement” destined to collapse and provide a platform for yet another three-day special military operation.

Europe has seen this story before. Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh before the 2020 war, each was intended to remain a frozen conflict.

And in practice, they became pressure points, reservoirs of instability that Moscow could switch on and off at will to destabilise the region. To imagine Donetsk and Luhansk becoming Europe’s next Transnistria is to accept permanent vulnerability on NATO’s doorstep and a constant level of instability within Ukraine’s political sphere.

European officials speak in public of unity and support. In private, they speak of containing Trump as much as of Putin.

Why Ukraine’s Future Matters Beyond the Battlefield

The Washington meeting comes at a precarious moment in the war. On the ground, neither side has made decisive advances in months. Ukraine, exhausted but defiant, clings to defensive lines bolstered by Western support.

Russia, bloodied but resilient despite a severely overheated war economy, shows no sign of abandoning its campaign of attrition and appears to be content forcing more meat into the grinder in the hope of securing meter after meter of Ukrainian territory.

Diplomatically, however, the battlefield is shifting. Putin sees in Trump an opportunity to lock in territorial gains and fracture Western unity, to apply stress to the fractures in the post-Trump NATO structure. To remove the urgency being felt in Europe to rush full-steam towards a strategically autonomous, geopolitical behemoth that could create a military industrial complex to rival America's.

Trump, for his part, sees in Putin the chance to finally win the Nobel Peace Prize that had been given to his eternal nemesis, former President Barack Obama, present himself as a peacemaker and serious geopolitical heavyweight, and to claim a victory that he can then hold over the head of his predecessor, Joe Biden, who he blames for the Russian invasion.

Domestically, Trump sees in Ukraine not a battlefield but a campaign backdrop. For his base, the promise of ending the war is more powerful than the details of how it ends or who has to suffer because of it. If Obama and Biden were the presidents who failed to stop Putin’s war in Ukraine, then Trump wants to be the man who shook hands, drew a line, and declared victory. The Nobel Prize fantasy sits alongside a simpler electoral truth: he needs a headline foreign-policy success to sell at rallies and debates ahead of the midterms, which look so dicey for the Republicans that his team are currently gerrymandering Texas and triggering a political war with Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom.

Whether Ukraine survives as a viable state is, for him, secondary.

For Europe, the calculus is different. Macron’s warning that “the security of Europeans and of France is at stake” is not hyperbole. A settlement that legitimises Russian conquest would erode the credibility of NATO and the EU alike and weaken the European continent in ways that are unimaginable.

It would embolden Moscow and weaken deterrence, even if European forces manage to turn Ukraine into an uninvadable steel porcupine.

As Zelenskyy, Trump and Europe’s leaders gather, several questions will determine whether the meeting marks progress or peril:

Territorial red lines : Will Trump press Zelenskyy to concede territory in Donetsk or Luhansk, and will Europe hold firm against such pressure?

Security guarantees : What form might U.S. commitments take, and will they be backed by Congress or remain verbal promises?

Europe’s unity : Can Macron, Merz, Starmer, Stubb, and Meloni present a genuinely united position, or will differences over strategy and timelines emerge?

Putin’s absence : Without the Russian president in the room, can any agreement be more than a speculative outline? And can he even be trusted to keep to his word

Trump’s unpredictability: Above all, will the U.S. president prioritise a stable settlement or the appearance of a quick victory he can claim as his own?

Monday’s meeting may not produce a peace agreement. It may not even produce a roadmap, but it will test whether Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy can move beyond theatrics to substance, and whether Europe can ensure it remains inside the room where Ukraine’s future is debated.

The choreography will be rich. The statements will be carefully worded. The photographs will be studied for hints of warmth or froideur. Yet behind the optics, the essential question remains stark: will this be the beginning of a peace settlement, or the prelude to a settlement imposed?

Europe’s leaders believe they are there to guarantee the former. Zelenskyy hopes they can prevent the latter. Trump, as ever, believes the script is his to write.

What happens in Washington on 18 August will not end the war in Ukraine, but it may define the terms on which that war will one day end, and the balance of power that will shape Europe for generations to come.

The choice is stark. Either Washington becomes the stage where Ukraine, backed by Europe, asserts its sovereignty and its very right to exist as a sovereign nation, or it becomes the place where great powers sketch borders over its head.

For Europe, the risk is not just the future of Ukraine, but the precedent of a continent once again carved up in negotiations it does not control, of the old continent becoming a victim of story written by two imperialist leaders.

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WarImportant9685 on August 18th, 2025 at 17:06 UTC »

What a funny title in a bad way, it's like team avatar, or team avengers. The editor have such a bad taste, anyway i dont think it will be great for zelensky to come meet the orange don.

plated-Honor on August 18th, 2025 at 16:46 UTC »

Is there really a team here? None of the countries here have found anything beyond economic sanctions they can collectively agree on (and even those have been heavily debated). I feel like every few months there’s some big PR push where European leaders all do something with Zelenskyy for optics. But when the real votes or calls for action happen, very little comes to fruition.

“Team Europe” seems almost comical given the vastly different approach the countries on this team want to take.

Any-Original-6113 on August 18th, 2025 at 12:53 UTC »

We'll soon see how this game ends in the White House.