Europe has a role 

European leaders are adamant that they must be included in final negotiations, not least because it is they who are are now providing the vast bulk of financial and military support to Ukraine. Trump ended American aid in 2025.

Zelenskyy and U.S. officials accept that European governments will likely need to be involved in discussions about security guarantees — mainly because any peacekeeping forces deployed to Ukraine would be dominated by European troops.

The Coalition of the Willing, a loose alliance of more than 30 countries led by France, the U.K. and Germany, put together detailed proposals in coordination with the U.S. almost a year ago. Ukraine is also interested in exploring bilateral security guarantees with the U.S., a discussion that would not need to involve European officials.

Plans for rebuilding Ukraine and nurturing its economic revival would also have to involve Europe, Zelenskyy said. "We cannot envision such a, so to speak, ‘Marshall Plan’ without Europe."

But Europe doesn’t know who should speak for it 

Trump’s renewed interest in Ukraine also resurfaced some sore questions for European governments: Who should represent them when it comes to decision time? And should they even be talking to Putin at all? 

With no clarity emerging from Brussels, some leaders have taken matters into their own hands. On Tuesday, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a 90-minute call with Putin, urging him to end the war. It went down badly with several European governments, including Denmark, Italy, Sweden and Lithuania. One frustrated diplomat said: “There are too many middle-aged men who want to end up in the history books having solved this war.”