Will Europe's leaders take on Putin if Trump abandons Ukraine?

How has it come to this? European politicians watching pathetically from the sidelines while Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin determine the future of their continent.

Our own Sir Keir Starmer, long used to bending the knee to Trump and playing the sycophant, says the self-proclaimed dealmaker in the White House has ‘brought us closer than ever before’ to peace. 

But what is the value of a peace that gives Putin everything he wants and betrays Ukraine?

Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington today with a number of European leaders, including Starmer, forming a posse. The Ukrainian president can’t possibly accept the deal Trump has discussed with Putin. 

It reportedly includes the preposterous demand that Ukraine should cede land to Russia that Putin’s forces haven’t even occupied.

So, what happens when Zelensky politely says thank you but no thank you? Trump might rage at him, as he did in February, though he is less likely to do so with European leaders present. 

More likely he will announce that they all had a very productive session and briefly turn up the heat again on Putin.

I realise the United States is the world’s most powerful country but that does not justify European leaders treating its wayward 79-year-old President with such deference in matters concerning the future security of Europe.

Trump’s critics say he is mendacious and has the attention span of a small gnat. That’s true. But his even more dangerous defect – dangerous, that is, from the point of view of those of us who live in Europe – is that he is a profoundly ignorant man.

According to John Bolton, Trump’s short-lived National Security Adviser during his first administration, the American President didn’t know that Britain is a nuclear power when he had talks in London with Theresa May in 2018.

Bolton also asserts that Trump asked his own chief of staff in 2018 whether Finland was part of Russia. Not since 1917 was the correct answer – when The Donald’s mother was a five-year-old child scampering around the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.

It’s not only that the American President knows less about modern history than an average GCSE student. His world view is terrifyingly limited, and apparently shaped by his experience as a New York real estate dealer.

When musing about the need for ‘land swapping’ a week ago – which in Trump’s mind principally means Ukraine ceding territory to Russia – he said he would ‘try to get back’ some of Ukraine’s ‘oceanfront property’. 

He added: ‘In real estate, we call it oceanfront property. That’s always the most valuable property’.

Granted, there have been ignorant American presidents in the past, but they sometimes recruited advisers with knowledge of statecraft and history to protect them from disaster. 

In his second administration Trump has surrounded himself with people not a lot less ignorant than himself.

Donald Trump is far out of his depth. He was easily outmanoeuvre by Putin – ‘Vladimir’ to Trump – during their talks in Alaska on Friday. The Russian president is focused, deadly, clever, and well-informed about global politics. 

Trump may be nasty but he’s no more than a blundering child by the side of Putin.

How shaming that the West should have been represented by such a man in Alaska – and how mind-bogglingly foolish of European leaders to have let him shape the future of Ukraine and of Europe.

Their pleas to be included in talks have been ignored until today’s meeting in Washington. Whether their presence will make much difference is doubtful. Trump is only consulting them over his plan.

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Zelensky, Starmer, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni will arrive to pay tribute at Trump’s court. 

Will this motley crew speak with one voice – or will the American President divide and rule?

European leaders have a choice. They can continue to allow Putin and Trump to call the shots, which will assuredly lead to a carve up of Ukraine and the consolidation of Russian power. Or they can decide to take charge themselves.

By what God-given right does Trump determine Europe’s future? 

It is true that Uncle Sam has paid most of the bills for defending the continent since 1945, but that is ending. America is slowly withdrawing from Europe and yet its grotesquely unqualified President is still handed the stage.

I am assuming that, whatever happens at today’s meeting, Trump won’t resile from what he has already agreed with Putin, or something like it. He plainly has had enough of America supporting Ukraine and, as he would put it, ‘wants out’.

That need not be the catastrophe that some European leaders fear. According to Germany’s authoritative Kiel Institute, European countries have given slightly more military aid to Ukraine than the US since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

The institute says that if America stopped all aid to Ukraine, and Europe were to make up the shortfall, the cost would double to some £70 billion a year, which is about 0.21 per cent – i.e. a minute fraction – of Europe’s GDP.

Admittedly, America sends Ukraine some specialised weaponry which Europe couldn’t easily replicate. But Trump has made clear that he would be happy to sell arms to Europe, which could be passed on to Ukraine.

In other words, the cost to Europe of continuing support to Ukraine without America would be relatively small. 

Note that the combined GDP of all European countries is probably at least six times that of Russia. Italy’s economy is bigger than Russia’s; that of Britain at least 60 per cent larger.

Europe could keep Ukraine going without American help and barely notice the cost. But does it have the stomach for it? 

The one priceless asset that Putin has at his disposal is the Russian readiness for sacrifice. Our Ministry of Defence reckons that more than a million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the invasion began.

The European ruling class has become soft and self-indulgent, accustomed to chauffeur-driven cars, endless holidays in Tuscany, and long dinners in Michelin-starred restaurants. 

I wonder if it has the appetite to defend our continent against Russian aggression without American support.

Look at the rum little band paying court to Trumpian power today, and supposedly providing protection to Zelensky from The Donald’s ire. 

Does Ursula von der Leyen strike you as warrior material? Or Friedrich Merz? Or that popinjay Macron? Or Sir Keir Starmer?

From 1800 to 1815, European powers united, first to fight and finally to confound the territorial ambitions of Napoleonic France. Britain, the constant and most reliable ally, was intermittently joined by Russia, Prussia and Austria.

Might a fresh European alliance be created to defend Ukraine from evisceration by Putin, and deter him from making further inroads into Europe? Or are we too divided, and too unused to looking after ourselves, to live without America?

Uncle Sam, in the shape of Trump, is telling us what to do. Accept that Ukraine is beaten, give Putin some land, and move on.

European leaders pretend to be aggrieved, but they show no sign of letting go of Donald Trump’s coat tails, far less of going it alone.