European heads of state and government travel to Kyiv

On the fourth day of his chancellorship, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz traveled to Ukraine on Friday. He did not travel on his own. French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk were also on their way to Kyiv. The four of them formed a combination of the German-French-Polish "Weimar Triangle" of the European Union and the "E3" of NATO, the group of the "Big Three" made up of Berlin, London and Paris. Earlier, on Thursday evening, Merz had spoken by phone with US President Donald Trump and on Friday, on a side trip before his trip to Kyiv, he visited the EU and NATO in Brussels . Immediately before taking off on the Ukrainian night train to Kyiv, he held one last meeting with Macron, Starmer and Tusk at the Polish airport in Rzeszów near the Ukrainian border.

The goal for which the Chancellor and his European colleagues pulled together so many threads is laid out in a joint statement released late Friday evening. Together with the United States, the four leaders write at the very beginning of the brief text, they call on "Russia to agree to a complete and unconditional 30-day ceasefire to create space for talks on a just and lasting peace."

The communiqué was very closely based on a post that Trump had published on his "Truth Social" platform immediately after his phone call with Merz. Its core sentence was: "The United States calls for an ideally unconditional ceasefire of 30 days" in order to work "toward a peace agreement."

There are also several other parallels between Europe and Washington. For example, the declaration with which the four heads of state and government left for Kyiv states that "as long as Russia does not agree to a permanent ceasefire," they will "increase the pressure on Russia's war machine." Trump's statement is succinct: "If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions." Merz himself sounded very similar during his stopover in Brussels before taking off for Kyiv. He said that Germany would not hesitate to "further increase the pressure of sanctions" if Russia did not "finally embark on the path to genuine peace negotiations."

With these objectives, the Europeans have, on the one hand, followed lines set by America, as the idea of ​​a 30-day ceasefire originally came from there. On the other hand, their text also contains some elements that contradict certain American ideas. For example, not only is there no mention of the American idea from April of persuading Russia to make peace through international recognition of its conquests in Ukraine . On the contrary: the joint declaration of the four demands that a future peace must ensure that Ukraine "must be enabled to develop as a sovereign nation within its internationally recognized borders, also for future generations."

The text also mentions the idea of ​​creating a "coalition of future air, sea, land, and regeneration forces," within which states would contribute troops to secure a future peace agreement. However, there are clear differences among the four travelers. Macron and Starmer, in particular, had been working towards such a security force in recent months. Merz, on the other hand, has always been evasive on the subject, and even before the trip, he did not make a clear statement on the matter. He is practicing a strategy that experts refer to as "strategic ambiguity." This sets him apart not only from his much more unambiguous colleagues Macron and Starmer, but also – in the opposite direction – from his predecessor Olaf Scholz. Scholz has always pointedly rejected any idea of ​​an armed international mission to protect future peace in Ukraine.

Germany's reluctance is also due to the fact that it remains unclear whether America would support such a force if a future peace agreement were to fail and Russia were to attack the soldiers. The telephone conversation between Merz and Trump also failed to provide any clarity on this matter. However, it does seem to have become clear that Trump supports the path the four European countries are now taking, at least for the time being. The mood during the conversation was apparently positive. Trump and Merz have mutual acquaintances from their time as businessmen, and some of Trump's German ancestors come from Bad Dürkheim, where Merz served as a soldier decades ago.

From the Chancellor's perspective, it is important that every European step in Ukraine is perceived as a joint step alongside America. The short text posted by the American President shortly after Thursday's phone call shows that the consensus the Chancellor desired appears to be in place, at least for the time being. In it, Trump wrote that he remains "committed to securing peace between Russia and Ukraine," "together with the Europeans."

While this is more than nothing, it is also less than the "backstop," the American reassurance, that the Chancellor desires for support in Ukraine. In Berlin, there is still a great deal of uncertainty regarding Trump. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung a few weeks ago, Merz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that when it comes to the American president, one must hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and he apparently still follows this maxim today.

This is probably one of the reasons why his language regarding Russia has lost some of its edge since his election victory in February. During his time as opposition leader, he openly threatened to supply Ukraine with the German Taurus cruise missile to engage targets deep inside Russia , but recently there has been no talk of this. While the German government still believes that the Ukrainian armed forces need long-range weapons, it is now placing more emphasis on financing the construction of long-range weapons locally than on supplying weapons itself.

While there is no official confirmation of this quiet change of course, there is a silence regarding the Taurus that is not only striking, but is also being portrayed in government circles as a "conscious" decision for "strategic ambiguity." This includes the fact that the German government generally no longer wants to discuss the delivery of weapons to Ukraine publicly in the future. Russia, it is said, should no longer be able to anticipate and prepare for every delivery.