Concert of Europe

At a crucial juncture when US President Donald Trump seems to be too eager to make Ukraine a sacrificial lamb to the aggrandisement of Russian President Vladimir Putin, three European countries — the UK, France and Germany — made a reassuring gesture by organising a summit of sorts in London December 8 to throw their weight behind Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz held talks with Zelenskyy. The meeting came in the wake of US efforts to get Kyiv and Moscow to sign up quickly to a plan to end the war in Ukraine.

Kyiv is in an existential crisis as the US brokered plan wants it to cede territory to Russia. While Ukraine doggedly opposes the idea of forking out its own territory, it also wants security guarantees to ensure that Moscow respects an eventual agreement. Starmer lent his voice to the second proposition when he said Ukraine needed “hard-edged security guarantees”. He has also repeatedly said that Kyiv must determine its own future and not have conditions imposed on it. This is only natural if we understand the current situation that the three European countries are concerned not only for Ukraine’s future, but also for the security of the continent as a whole. Their anxiety stems from the fact that if Russia is “rewarded” with Ukrainian territory as part of a peace deal, it could then attack other European countries in the future with similar demands.