The Abu Dhabi talks have laid bare the fundamental contradiction at the heart of European foreign policy. While Washington, Kyiv and Moscow are all actively exploring a negotiated settlement, European governments risk confusing a seat at the table with the capacity to shape what happens there.
Europe’s Divided Diplomacy and the Struggle for a Seat at the Table
The Abu Dhabi talks have revealed a very awkward contradiction in European foreign policy. The European governments insist that no settlement can be reached without them, yet they have been unable to agree on who should be the European representative, what that representative should have the power to do, or whether they should be in a position to engage in direct diplomacy with Moscow at all. As Jared Kushner inadvertently admitted, “the Europeans are too divided among themselves to agree on a single negotiator.”
As Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow go through the motions of trying to work out a negotiated settlement, Europe struggles to secure a seat at the negotiation table and appoint a single negotiator.
The first round of US-facilitated trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi (10–11 Nov) resulted in an agreement in principle on a major prisoner swap, but no progress on territory or the core security issues. Moscow remains insistent that Ukraine hand over the Donbas territory it still holds, and Kyiv is not prepared to do that. According to journalist John Helmer, the inner circles in Moscow confirm that the high military establishment accepts that an agreement can be based on the present front line.
In turn, Kyiv is seeking credible assurances against a further attack. It’s a case of the parties having had nine months of no direct talks, and now they’ve got back to the table.
Europe’s chaos is more than a communications issue. Giorgia Meloni of Italy has criticised the overlapping initiatives and the lack of a single common mandate. Zelensky has been calling on the European governments to pick a representative as quickly as possible and to consult Kyiv rather than just represent an initiative.
There’s been renewed criticism of Alexander Stubb of Finland and Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway for speaking directly to Vladimir Putin. That kind of reaction only serves to underline the perception that engagement with Russia has become politically taboo in parts of Europe even when such engagement is absolutely essential to the end of the war.
Europe has good grounds for being in. It’s given Ukraine massive amounts of financial and military assistance, and it will be at the heart of the reconstruction and the future security arrangements.
The more fundamental issue is the relationship between principle and the realities of politics. The European leaders are quite right to stand by Ukraine’s side. The problem is that if you’re absolutely opposed to any discussion of territorial compromise, of neutrality or of the future of NATO’s posture, then you’re, in fact, rendering your principled position unworkable as a negotiating position. The question is what arrangement will end the killing, what arrangement will preserve a viable, sovereign Ukrainian state and what arrangement will prevent another war.
Ukrainian public opinion ought to be the one to drive this debate. Gallup’s 2026 survey showed that 66% of Ukrainians would support negotiating an end to the war as soon as possible. This means a clear majority would prefer diplomacy as a priority rather than continuing to fight indefinitely. European governments should take that preference on board rather than assume their own strategic position is what Ukrainians want.
George Beebe’s Warning: The Institutional and Political Obstacles to Peace
George Beebe (former Director of Russia Analysis at the CIA, now Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute) has some very pertinent concerns on this issue which are worth highlighting. In an interview with Glenn Diesen on 30 October, he made it very clear that these negotiations are going to require far more than just political statements and a territorial arrangement. A genuine European security settlement is going to require specialist skills and a working inter-agency process: military postures, weapons deployments, notification arrangements, verification, monitoring and intelligence. The Pentagon, the intelligence agencies and the working-level diplomats all have to be in. Beebe’s worry is that neither Washington nor the European capitals are set up for this and that there will be people within the establishment who are fundamentally opposed to compromise who will stand in the way of the process.
His warning about Europe is absolutely the key one. Beebe is saying that if the European governments go in for the policy of ensuring that no compromise is reached at all, then they will be left out of the deal and will damage their relations with both Washington and Moscow. This is a warning that European obstruction could leave Kyiv with nothing at all in the way of a viable state, no reconstruction and no credible path to European integration.
Beebe’s alternative is that without some wider geopolitical accommodation, Ukraine could be left to face further destruction, a further decline in its population and the prospect of becoming a failed state.
Beebe is just as critical of the very common European view that if Russia wins in Ukraine, its next moves will be to take the Baltics, then Poland and then Germany. In Beebe’s view, that scenario is not only absurd but also based on a completely wrong analysis of Russian intentions and capabilities. In his words, “an absolutely absurd line of analysis”.
Such a war would be extremely risky (potentially leading to nuclear escalation) and would in any case not be in Russia’s interests. That doesn’t mean European countries should stop preparing or ignore their legitimate security concerns. His real warning is that the idea of an imminent Russian invasion becoming a fait accompli is a dangerous one. It could well be that the very act of making that threat, so prominent will in fact create the very crisis it is being used to justify. It will feed fear in the public, and it will, in effect, close down the political space for diplomacy. In other words, it may well be that the very thing they are trying to prevent is being created.
The pressures on the parties are very uneven. Ukraine is under pressure on the battlefield, suffering attrition, has manpower constraints and is still being attacked on its energy infrastructure. Russia is of the view that the application of military pressure may improve its own bargaining position and is looking for limits on NATO and a more comprehensive security arrangement.
The Trump administration is looking for some diplomatic progress, a reduction in the strategic burden and a foreign policy win. Europe is worried about Russian power and also about the prospect of a reduced American commitment. That’s why the negotiations are so difficult.
The Europeans’ argument that Russia should not be “allowed to have a say” in the European security architecture, and the indivisible security principle, is a complete non-starter. You can’t build a sustainable European security architecture by simply pretending that Russia, the largest state in Europe and a recognised third-largest great power in the world, can be excluded from any discussion on the use of force, on escalation or on arms control. The principle of indivisible security is not just a Russian talking point. It’s at the heart of the OSCE approach and the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. It must be balanced against states’ right to determine their own security arrangements.
A resurrected NATO-Russia Council (or equivalent forum) could provide the means for military transparency, crisis management, arms control and risk reduction. It would be recognition that adversaries need mechanisms to prevent miscalculation.
Beyond Ukraine: Rebuilding Europe’s Security Architecture
Mearsheimer’s great power realism goes some way to explaining the importance of strategic geography, the expansion of alliances and the way in which threat perceptions operate. Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard underlines the centrality of Eurasia in the global balance of power.
A more useful approach is to combine elements of geopolitical realism with the OSCE’s principles of comprehensive security, international law and the agency of the Ukrainian state. Understanding Russia’s threat perceptions and its indivisible security principle should also be central in the equation.
Europe should be at the table, but as a serious negotiating partner rather than the spoiler of a flawed peace. Europe’s influence depends on engaging Russia, listening to Kyiv, taking a coordinated line, and accepting that diplomacy requires compromise. The choice is no longer between a perfect peace and a bad one. It’s between helping to forge a difficult peace and risking a longer war in which Ukraine, European security and Europe’s own strategic standing would all be the poorer.
Finally, Zelensky finds himself in an extraordinarily difficult position: he is being pressed to surrender the Donbas in exchange for US-backed security guarantees whose actual strength and reliability remain uncertain. Ukraine is facing mounting military attrition and the rapid reduction of the army size, severe shortages of air-defence systems and the growing destruction of its economic and energy infrastructure, leaving Kyiv with increasingly limited alternatives.
The fiscal reality and the protests in Europe signal that Europe cannot continue to support Ukraine as it has been done – there is no political consensus to approve an additional aid package. Therefore, a negotiated settlement now is better than later. Europe cannot afford to be a Boris Johnson a second time, when, at the beginning of the conflict, he prevented Ukraine from signing a peace deal.
Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics
Follow new articles on our Telegram channel
