A critical point for Ukraine – and for Europe

Almost four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation on the ground and in the diplomatic arena has become critical. Our report from Kyiv graphically depicts the plight of so many residents in Ukraine’s capital city, who face nightly Russian air raids, targeting primarily civilian power supplies, in mid-winter. The intensity of the attacks, the damage sustained for want of sufficient air defence, and the winter temperatures have all been markedly worse than in previous years.

The human aspect, as ever, is the most poignant: nursery-age children who have learned to distinguish outgoing from incoming fire; a parliamentarian relieved that his family lacked the money to buy a flat in an adjacent high-rise that turned out to be more vulnerable than his ground-floor flat in an older building; no hot water, no heating or power, for all but two of 24 hours, all detrimental for wellbeing and morale. If this is what it is like living an MP’s relatively privileged life in Kyiv, the conditions for others, including those living further east, in the actual battle zone, must be many times worse.

Yet Ukrainians fight on, demonstrating admirable, almost superhuman, fortitude in their determination not to cede land to the Russian aggressor, and especially not the fortress belt that Russia has not been able to win on the battlefield and is seen as crucial to Ukraine’s security, now and in the future. Those who argue that it is time to stop praising Ukrainian resilience and time instead to focus on the actions that have made that resilience necessary are not wrong. But without Ukraine’s resilience, this could be a very different story.

Nor is it only on the ground that the situation has reached a critical point. The diplomacy that dates from the start of Donald Trump’s second term in office appears to stand at a potentially pivotal point, too. Both the dangers and, alas, the rather fewer hopes for peace, were on display this weekend at the Munich Security Conference.

This time last year, Europe was reeling from the speech at that same conference of the US vice-president, JD Vance, and what appeared his shocking litany of charges against Europe. This year, the most senior US speaker was the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who sounded a more emollient and reassuring note, underlining a continuing US commitment to Europe, and paying tribute to European cultural achievements.

But he also left two raw realities in place. There would be no going back on the demand that Europe take responsibility for its own defence. And Ukraine – which he did not mention once by name in his speech, although that was more than made up for during questions and side-meetings – was primarily a European problem, and would be entirely a European problem if the current, US-led, diplomacy failed. He also noted that any agreement would require “hard concessions” on the part of Ukraine.

If that was intended to be a signal in advance of a new round of talks, involving both Ukrainians and Russians, due to take place in Geneva this week, it received a distinctly frosty response from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and his team of officials, who were also in Munich. Their view was that the US consistently made more demands of them than of the Russians, that further territorial concessions were out of the question, and that the prospect of elections in Ukraine – mooted last week – was barely on the drawing board.

Discussions, on and off the podium, at Munich, underlined not only the fitful and inconsistent nature of Mr Trump’s so far failed peace efforts on Ukraine, but also the extent of Europe’s exclusion, despite European leaders having made valiant attempts to be heard in the early months of Mr Trump’s second-term presidency. Now, once again, they find themselves on the outside, but with their solidarity weaker than it was, with divisions about how much support can be afforded for Ukraine and whether perhaps to open a channel to Moscow.

As so often, the European case was made most persuasively by Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski. Now that Europe was effectively paying for Ukraine’s defence, he said, which includes funding weapons purchases from the United States, then the Europeans deserved a say in any talks and in what happens next. It is a position that is hard to argue with, but which could also come back to haunt the Europeans, who would be left with the sole responsibility, should Mr Trump decide to give up.

This makes the state of diplomacy at least as perilous for Ukraine as the increasingly difficult situation on the ground in Kyiv and elsewhere. Mr Zelensky sees the United States as essential to any peace, because he believes that it alone has the power to implement the security guarantees Ukraine needs. The growing detachment of the US administration from the whole process, however, was clear for all to see at the Munich conference, which is why the talks set to convene in Geneva are make-or-break as almost never before and not just for Ukraine, but for relations between the US and Europe.