As the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, held his carefully stage-managed annual phone-in and press conference to answer questions from journalists and ordinary Russians, EU leaders were hosting Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky in Brussels at their final meeting of the year. Unsurprisingly, the war in Ukraine loomed large at both events.
But the conflict in Ukraine is just one part of a complex and rapidly changing geopolitical environment which neither Russia nor the EU, let alone Ukraine fully control. The main reason for this is Donald Trump, who will return to the White House at the end of January, 2025. He already has an outsized influence over the calculations Moscow and Brussels make. But his determined – if detail-free – push for an end of the war in Ukraine is seen with scepticism on the other side of the Atlantic. This holds for Brussels as much as in Moscow.
European foreign ministers on Monday, December 16, reiterated their determination to support Kyiv no matter what. Kaja Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister (now EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy) was unequivocal when she stated that European military support needs to increase. The key would be to enable Ukraine “not just to hold on, but to tilt the balance to their favour because Putin will not stop, unless he’s stopped”.
