Comment garantir une paix européenne en Ukraine ?

Tout en tenant compte des réalités du champ de bataille, une véritable paix européenne ne récompenserait pas l'agression russe, mais la freinerait, tout en veillant à la sécurité et à la prospérité futures de l'Ukraine. Quelles seraient ces conditions ?

For Ukraine, as for Europe, the spectacle of the Trump-Putin bonhomie at the Alaska summit was repulsive. To see the president of the United States applaud a wanted war criminal, to see military aggression and occupation legitimised in style, was truly disheartening. To be kept absent from the table while being on the menu, revived our bitterest memories of twentieth-century diplomacy of conquest.

How did it come to this? For months, European leaders have been making concession after concession to Trump's America: a one-sided raw materials deal in Ukraine, a one-sided trade agreement between the US and the European Union, a massive jump in defence spending for NATO, Europe committing to paying US businesses for the weapons Ukraine needs. All those gifts, all that sycophancy and bowing, all for nothing as Putin did not budge and Trump carelessly dropped demands for a ceasefire. Almost for nothing, perhaps, as a panic-stricken delegation was still welcome to race to Washington and once again outdo itself in flattery and persuasion.

Being allowed to practice the art of Trump whispering is apparently what Europe has gained for all its diplomatic and economic efforts. Convincing the mercurial US president to turn Russian capitulation diktats into a genuine peace process will continue to occupy Europe’s leaders, with only tentative and marginal gains at every turn. Now the promise of US security guarantees for Ukraine is being floated, but what will it take to turn intentions into a corner stone of a durable peace that does not condemn Ukraine to submission or instability? Ukraine would have to benefit from a bullet proof NATO-style security guarantee without NATO membership. Squaring that circle will take some doing. True to form, yet another big purchase of US weaponry, sweetened with Ukraine drone technology, is already in the offing. In the meantime, Trump is eager for another summit.

Europe cannot go on like this. It is spending a lot of political capital on manoeuvring the US president and comparatively little on what should be its real focus: a clear peace strategy and a war-like mobilisation effort to support it with European capabilities at breakneck speed. While recognising battlefield realities, a genuine European peace would not reward but check Russian aggression while seeking to ensure the future security and prosperity of Ukraine. What conditions would this take?

One: no formal legal recognition of Russian annexations, but a Korea-style freezing of de facto border lines in exchange for the beginning of normalization of diplomatic relations with Russia. Two: no new territorial concessions outside the already occupied territories, including the Donbas, where Ukraine lacks natural defences against new incursions in the future. Three: a multinational peacekeeping and monitoring force on unoccupied Ukrainian territory or in a neutral buffer zone, for as long as Ukraine deems necessary. Fourth: reaffirmation of Ukraine's sovereignty and freedom, ruling out any Russian veto over the development of its democracy, economy, military, and its pathway to EU membership. Five: ironclad security guarantees for the integrity of the free Ukrainian territory, including formal American support anchored on the ground. Six: no end to economic or financial sanctions against Russia without European consent, with the establishment of a new sanctions regime that takes effect immediately if Russia fails to respect the ceasefire or violates the peace terms. Seven: an independent body overseeing war reparations and compliance with the peace agreement.

Putin’s Russia rejects, and essentially wants the opposite of, all of the above. The self-professed ‘root causes’ of its invasion require Russia to extend its sphere of influence and to challenge the broader security order that was built after the end of Cold War. Russia must conquer as much territory as it can and turn unoccupied Ukraine into a de facto vassal state that is neither defensible nor investible, essentially at the mercy of Moscow. The Putin regime, the entire Russian state machinery, its war economy and much of its civil society are wedded to this proposition. A Russian peace is a subordinated Ukraine combined with a resurgent and rearmed Russia that can continue to provoke and challenge Ukraine and the rest of Europe at will for the foreseeable future.

This fundamental geopolitical reality can only be altered by force – military, economic, and financial. If Europe wants a European peace, it will have to supply and project the power needed to achieve and enforce it. Europe should be abuzz with an all-out high-speed drive to build for Ukraine, on the ground, now and into the future. It is not. Europe’s financial and trade sanctions on Russia remain half-hearted, while its military aid remains insufficient and largely US-dependent, three and a half years into the invasion.

If no meaningful European coalition can be mobilized—financially, militarily, industrially, and politically—Europe proves itself unwilling to make the sacrifices its own security demands. We will then indeed have to keep pleading with America to do what we refuse to do ourselves. With Donald Trump in the White House this will not fly. There will be no real American peace in Ukraine. We face a bitter choice between a Russian war and a Russian peace that is at best smoothed with minimal and conditional American guarantees bought at a high European price. The clock is ticking. Live up to it, Europe, or suffer the consequences.