Europe divided over how to influence US-Russia talks

Fears of continent being sidelined in Ukraine peace negotiations prompt disjointed outreach to Vladimir Putin

European capitals are growing increasingly anxious about being shut out of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine but remain divided over how to secure a seat at the table as Donald Trump intensifies pressure on Kyiv to strike a deal with Moscow.

The US president has startled his European allies in recent weeks when he relaxed sanctions on Moscow, blamed Ukraine for not wanting to end the conflict and floated the resumption of business deals with Russia in a bid to resume peace talks that had been on ice since February.

With US-Russia-Ukraine talks set to take place in Abu Dhabi, European governments are fearing decisions with far-reaching consequences for their security could be taken over their heads. The anxiety prompted the leaders of Norway and Finland to arrange a call with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday without first securing EU backing, drawing swift criticism from European allies.

Seeking to defend the call, Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre said: "I don't think [Putin] will change his mind, but he gets to hear our position very clearly. I am worried that some of these messages do not reach him when the Americans talk to him."

The disjointed outreach and backlash it prompted underscore Europe's dilemma over how best to communicate the continent's interests to Putin and Trump, diplomats and officials said.

Despite wielding considerable leverage -- from sanctions relief and more than €200bn in frozen Kremlin assets to Ukraine's EU membership bid -- Europe has struggled to translate its economic and political weight into diplomatic influence. Officials said that while Washington and Kyiv increasingly recognised the continent's indispensable role in any deal, European governments remained shut out of the negotiations.

That has fed fears that Washington and Moscow could agree over EU governments' heads on matters affecting them directly, such as security guarantees for Russia that could impose restrictions on Nato.

"Before we can talk about choosing a representative we need a chair at the table," said a senior European diplomat. "Putin doesn't want to include us, he wants to talk to Trump and so to put [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy in a corner."

"In the meantime, Putin does want to see us beg for a role," he added.

While the US still involves the Europeans at some level -- Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff stopped on his way to and from Russia to talk to Støre and Finnish president Alexander Stubb -- Moscow maintains there was no need for European representation.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told state television that "three-party talks do not envision EU participation . . . we don't need participants like that".

"And the Americans, who are trying to secure peace, most likely do not need them either," Peskov said.

On Thursday, Putin said the criticism of Stubb and Støre was unjustified. "At the end of the day, there are people in Europe who don't want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, like some, but want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue," he said.

"We support any steps to restore fully fledged relations with European countries."

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, said: "Russia would like to insert the Europeans into the political process, but in a way that they're not directly involved and Trump has more of a chance to pressure Europe to go along with his appeasement of Putin."

Countries including Denmark, Italy and Lithuania have rebuked Støre and Stubb for their outreach to Putin.

"Any contact with Russia must be backed by a united position, real leverage and a list of European demands," said Kęstutis Budrys, Lithuania's foreign minister. "Engaging with Putin one by one and without [a] clear agenda has never worked for Europe. Not once."

"Everyone thinks that they can somehow change him," said a senior EU diplomat, referring to Putin. "But it's a waste of time."

Støre responded to the criticism by pointing to European divisions: "We did not ask EU countries for their backing, as we know there are different views."

Officials in Germany, which is the single biggest military supporter of Ukraine, sought to play down the backlash to the call. "What matters is that Norway and Finland spoke in their own right, briefed others both before and afterwards, and advocated positions that had already played a central role in the negotiations," said one German official.

But Norbert Röttgen, a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union, said that a "self-mandated telephone call is not the way the Europeans should act".

Such initiatives "create the impression that Putin has a genuine interest in conducting serious substantive talks -- which turned out, totally unsurprisingly, to be not the case", Röttgen said. The conversation had "weakened the hands of the Europeans and had no realistic expectation of producing anything substantial", he added.

Four European diplomats said that the US and Ukraine saw the so-called E3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- as the most likely group to play a role in settlement negotiations. But the prospect of Europe's three most significant nations representing the entire continent risked alienating smaller European countries, the diplomats said.

One of the diplomats said Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had agreed with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv last month that "the E3 would be the vehicle" for European representation. "[But] there's still an intra-European row about this."

"For now we will try to stick to E3. At some point, if you are in a very serious negotiation, and we're a long way from that, for Ukraine's relationship with the EU and the lifting of sanctions, European institutions are going to need to be involved. We have to find a way of doing that," the diplomat added.

Gabuev said Russia was unlikely to be interested in any serious talks on ending the war until after this winter, counting on its campaign of massive air strikes to weaken Ukraine's negotiation position.

"The Europeans need to be ready for the window to open, and it'll be when Ukraine is not in its best shape," he said. "They've already missed a few windows when Ukraine had strong leverage and could dictate terms."