BRUSSELS – European leaders know they can’t stop courting Donald Trump. But as the US president menaces Ukraine and offers Russia an economic lifeline, they are preparing for a world where he effectively sides with Moscow.
In the span of a week, Trump has trashed years of energy sanctions on the Kremlin, pressured Kyiv to quit bombing Russian oil refineries and suggested Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was an illegitimate president – echoing Moscow’s propaganda.
At one point, Ukraine also lost full access to the Elon Musk-owned Starlink system, leaving it hobbled on the battlefield.
In response, Zelensky let rip. He felt betrayed, he said. He called out Trump in public.
It was a dismaying moment for the Europeans, according to people familiar with the conversations at a leaders’ summit in Brussels this week.
For many, it exposed a painful reality they’ve been avoiding for months: Trump’s instinct is to bash Kyiv and boost Russia.
And that’s unlikely to change, several European Union leaders, including those of France and Germany, said during their private conversations.
Zelensky himself will address the meeting on Oct 16.
“We see that Zelensky has only one ally now, it’s actually the Europeans,” Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs told Bloomberg TV in Brussels.
Trump and Zelensky have been here before, of course, and always found a way to patch things up.
Their first meeting in the Oval Office in 2025 descended into a shouting match and prompted the US to briefly curb intelligence sharing.
Later, the US tried to convince Kyiv to accept a 28-point peace plan that overwhelmingly favoured Russia, prompting Zelensky to warn his country risked losing its key partner.
By this summer, European leaders had managed to persuade Trump to show a degree of sympathy for Ukraine’s long fight against the Russian invasion.
At the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in France, President Emmanuel Macron engineered a brief meeting with Trump at which Zelensky showed him pictures of a cathedral in Kyiv decimated by Russian missiles.
“The western alliance is in a weaker position now than it was a few days ago,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters as she arrived for talks in the Belgian capital on Oct 15.
“If you do not support Ukraine, then you put Europe as a whole, and in my view therefore also NATO as a whole, in a much, much more dangerous situation.”
Their latest falling-out is happening at a particularly inopportune moment.
Winter is setting in and Ukraine has a shortage of the US-made Patriot interceptors needed to shoot down Russian missiles.
Kyiv’s military costs are also blowing a hole in its budget that Europe is struggling to fill.
Meanwhile, Russia is striking more civilian targets, leaving Kyiv experiencing intermittent power and water supply cuts.
In November, Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a chance to meet with Trump at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China – where neither Zelensky nor the Europeans will be present.
Trump, for his part, is weeks away from a midterm election where his Republican party is expected to suffer heavy losses – sending him searching for quick ways to lower gas prices.
That fixation is informing Trump’s push to buy Russian diesel despite sanctions, and his calls for Ukraine to halt attacks on oil refineries, even if experts say the US war on Iran is the largest culprit behind high fuel costs.
“The most important thing that we’re going to discuss today is what he needs for this winter. It’s all about this winter,” Kulberg told Bloomberg.
“We also have to understand that the United States is now running into the midterms. It’s election time,” Kulbergs said. “That’s a different vibe.”
For now, most Europeans are recommending that Zelensky temper his criticism of Trump, given there is no alternative to working with the US, the people said.
The country continues to sell Ukraine weapons and share intelligence vital to Kyiv’s defence.
If that intelligence disappeared, Europe would not have a good solution, one official said.
That’s likely why EU leaders were careful not to be too publicly critical of Trump as they arrived on Oct 15 for their summit in Brussels.
Behind closed doors, however, several still expressed shock at the US president’s recent behaviour, the people said.
An Elysee official said France’s priority is for Europe to continue supporting Ukraine.
A German chancellery spokesperson didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Europe is sticking to its guns by upholding sanctions and insisting that Ukraine shouldn’t cede territory in a peace settlement, especially after Kyiv’s forces regained some lost ground in the eastern region of Donbas Putin wants to control.
US leverage over Ukraine has also diminished over the last few months.
While intelligence remains an important factor, the money to support Kyiv and buy US weapons comes primarily from Europe.
Ukraine is also finally receiving ammunition for F-16 fighter jets to shoot down Russia’s menacing jet-powered drones.
Meanwhile, Washington’s efforts to deliver peace, which Trump promised to bring shortly after taking officein 2025, haven’t made much headway.
The latest meetings in Florida over the weekend, which the Ukrainian delegation cut short following Trump’s Russia diesel deal, largely focused on going over the same set of points that the president’s envoys – Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner – drew up months ago, according to people familiar with the matter.
During a meeting on Oct 12, EU foreign ministers privately agreed that Europe’s policy on Ukraine must remain constant, regardless of the gyrations in Washington, according to people briefed on the discussions.
They resolved to engage the US when it’s possible, and maintain their support for Kyiv when it’s not.
“We definitely have a different approach to this war,” EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Oct 15. “We see that we have to pressure the aggressor to stop the war, not the victim to surrender. Squeezing Ukraine is not the right approach.” BLOOMBERG