Europe could steal Trump’s thunder with a new Ukraine deal of its own

As he prepares to meet European leaders in London, Volodymyr Zelensky is faced with two indisputable truths.

The first is that the Ukrainian President is running out of time – his valiant efforts to defend his nation against the unwarranted invasion by Russian forces are simply unsustainable, and he needs to secure a peaceful resolution.

The second is that any hope of peace with cannot be achieved without a stark security guarantee to underwrite it.

Friday’s Oval Office ambush between Zelensky and merely underlined what we already knew: Trump is not concerned about the fate of .

Uppermost in his mind – at least, according to those who do not believe Trump has been comproimised by ‘s intelligence agencies – is the flawed idea that he can decouple Moscow from its arch benefactor, Beijing.

But Trump is wrong to say that Zelensky has no other cards to play if he refuses to accede to accept his Putin-appeasing demands,

Because what the “king of the deal” has actually done is to offer Europe an opportunity to step in and steal his thunder.

It would not take very much for a determined and unified European Nato to offer the security guarantee Zelensky requires to make a peace deal work.

The first step might be to impose a no fly zone over – an idea which was proposed in 2022 and resolutely rejected by for fear of escalating tensions and dragging Nato into open combat.

We know more about Putin now. We know how his army performs in battle, with too much emphasis on tea-down command and outdated Soviet tactics. We know that his biggest weapon isn’t his nuclear arsenal, or his hypersonic missiles, or even the 900,000 troops he has sent to their deaths in the Ukrainian meat grinder. Rather, it is his ability to influence, to push his narrative using a variety of hybrid methods.

Europe is coalescing. During Trump’s first term in office, only four Nato members (including the UK) were meeting their 2% of GDP defence spending threshold. Now, onloy eight nations out of 32 do not.

Plans exist to form a 30,000 – 65,000-strong stabilisation force under the auspices of Nato’s UK-led Allied Rapid Response Corps.

And moves by the EU to remove defence from debt cap rules will unleash a torrent of defence investment which will ultimately benefit European defence firms.

Offering Europe the mineral deal will help to mitigate the cost over the long term.

While Zelensky has indicated he is ready to accept that occupied territory will remain under the Russian yoke for the considerable future, even a signal from Europe that it is willing to step in now will give him more leverage in peace negotiations .

Such a move by Europe may complicate ‘s fine balancing act, as he strives to make the UK a transatlantic bridge between Trump’s administration and Europe. But the security of Europe is more important even that a trade deal.

For his part, Trump may be incentivised by European decisiveness to salvage his reputation as dealmaker and reverse his position

Or he could try to sell it as a win for the US taxpayer.

Either way, Europe would have its much needed – and, crucially, lasting – peace.