Bloomberg: US looks to reassure European allies on role in Ukraine deal

Trump with Macron at a press conference.
Photo: scan from TV screen

US officials have told their European counterparts that the European Union will have to be involved in any Ukraine peace agreement given that Russia wants relief from sanctions imposed by the bloc as part of a deal, people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg writes.

The US has recently delivered the message to Europeans that the priority is to stop the fighting in the conflict and to discuss issues such as potential security arrangements for Ukraine after that, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

The outreach may offer some measure of reassurance to allied nations that fear the US will try to cut a deal without the participation of European leaders that could weaken Ukraine or Europe’s security. So far President Donald Trump has largely excluded Europe from his conversations with Ukraine and Russia.

Those fears were exacerbated Tuesday as Trump spoke by phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In their call, Putin declined Trump’s bid for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, agreeing only to limit attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure while demanding that the US and other nations stop the flow of weapons and intelligence.

Ukraine’s allies have imposed a barrage of sanctions on Russia since 2022. The measures have hit both individuals deemed close to the Russian authorities and entities. There are also secondary sanctions, which are designed to amplify the impact of direct sanctions by penalizing third parties seeking to do business with blacklisted entities.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio alluded to the issue in remarks to reporters at a Group of Seven summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, last week.

“The European Union has imposed significant sanctions on the Russian Federation and on individuals inside of Russia,” he said. “So they will have to be consulted, and they’ll have to be engaged in this process and so forth. So let’s not predetermine or start putting everything ahead of itself here.”

After meeting with Trump last week, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Bloomberg Television that relations with Russia should eventually be normalized once the fighting ends in Ukraine, while emphasizing the need to keep pressure on Moscow to ensure progress in ceasefire negotiations.

However Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kęstutis Budrys, said in an interview Monday that it would be “damaging to even consider” restoring relations with Russia at this point.

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