A Country on the Brink
Blackouts of up to 16 hours, a record number of desertions on the Ukrainian front, 576 per day, and the rapid approach of a harsh winter paint the current picture of Ukraine at war: an exhausted country facing a major decision, whether to accept a peace plan that could end a prolonged conflict. Is President Trump’s peace plan convenient for both sides? Will it succeed in producing lasting peace? And is Europe prepared to accept Ukraine’s defeat in a war that has been pushed forward for so long?
The United States has issued an ultimatum to Kyiv: sign the peace plan by November 27, or lose weapons deliveries and access to intelligence, diplomatic sources told Reuters. The US president has since backed away from this deadline, saying: “The deadline for me is when it’s over.” Pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky has increased after his initial refusal of an agreement that included major territorial concessions and abandoning NATO membership. For the first time, the Ukrainian leader faces a “fait accompli” from Washington, a situation that forces him to acknowledge that the war must end, and that Kyiv’s position is no longer the advantageous one projected by propaganda over recent months.
In this deadlock, corruption scandals surrounding the presidential entourage have weighed heavily. Hundreds of millions of dollars missing or mismanaged, along with billions questioned since the start of the conflict, have exposed Ukraine internationally. They confirmed what many suspected: the emperor has no clothes. Ukraine’s victorious narrative, and that of those who insisted at any cost that this country could win the war, now rests on a single pillar, the acceptance of the peace plan.
Zelensky finds himself caught between two pressures. On one hand, the military reality pushes him to accept the plan, as Ukraine’s options are shrinking. On the other, Brussels encourages him to resist, attempting, again, to extract more favorable terms for Kyiv. During this period, Europe has acted as a protector of the Ukrainian narrative, entering a gray zone it should never have entered.
Europe’s Strategic Illusion
In reality, neither Ukraine nor Russia have been the main obstacles to a peace agreement; the European Union itself has. Its behavior has been that of a spoiled, rebellious child confronted with a conflict far too large for its institutional capacity. Caught between declared ambitions and geopolitical realities it cannot control, the EU now faces the uncomfortable realization that the game it has fueled can no longer be won.
Brussels will, of course, continue its attempts to sidestep the American administration. The EU has always sought to take control of the conflict from the United States, yet it will remain, at heart, a secondary actor, a vocal spectator incapable of shaping the final outcome. This exposes the fragility of the entire European structure: many statements, little force; much moralizing, little strategy.
What Europe has not understood, or has understood and refused to accept, is that this war has been a proxy conflict from the very beginning. The entire Ukrainian military effort has been sustained by the United States, through money, military hardware, and, above all, intelligence sharing, without which Ukraine would not have survived. And if Kyiv does not accept the peace plan, it will not survive at all.
The Consequences of Refusal
In the scenario where Ukraine refuses the agreement, or it is blocked for other reasons, the advantage will go entirely to Russia. The European counter-proposal, crafted more to irritate Washington with the bureaucracy’s moral superiority than to achieve results, only prolongs the agony. For Moscow, any delay is a strategic gift: Russia will not accept a peace plan directed by the EU, and by offering its alternative, the EU only creates the impression that Russia is the obstacle to peace. In reality, in any scenario, Russia is advantaged, as official statements from the Russian administration confirm.
Ukraine’s refusal to sign the agreement would be, in practice, political and military suicide. Putin knows that winter is coming, and Ukraine’s energy capacities are at rock bottom. Troop performance is already poor, visible in areas such as Pokrovsk, where the Ukrainian front collapsed under Russian advances, allowing daily infiltrations and control of over 80% of the territory, or Kupyansk, a recently lost strategic railway hub, where Ukrainian losses exceed hundreds daily, according to ISW reports from November 24. Units fight at 30–50% capacity, rotations are insufficient, and desertions are rising. Additionally, the attacks with glide bombs, over 5,300 in October alone, make maintaining a stable defensive line impossible. Putin knows that winter will amplify the chaos, turning the front lines into deadly traps, just as in Operation Barbarossa, when the frost shifted the strategic balance. The EU’s counter-proposal, with its airs of moral superiority, does nothing but prolong the agony and provide Russia with a perfect pretext to continue its offensive, a strategic “gift” Moscow accepts with indifference, aware that time is on its side.
Europe’s Hollow Leadership
And precisely for this reason, why should Europeans trust their elites, in a context where a swift peace would collapse the entire discursive architecture the EU has built over the past two years? It would demonstrate that investments, sanctions, economic sacrifices, and assumed risks have not changed the course of the war. For Brussels, peace is not just a geopolitical solution; it is also an internal political risk. A peace in “unfavorable” terms for Ukraine would directly hit the credibility of European elites, fuel Euroscepticism, and question the EU’s ability to realistically interpret security situations. That is why some Europeans prefer to prolong the conflict, maintain pressure, and continue rearmament, even if all this delays the very thing they claim to seek: peace.
France openly talks about “preparing for conflict,” accelerating rearmament and calling on Europe to enter a long-term mobilization logic. Germany is completely restructuring its military industry. The European Commission promotes a continental rearmament plan worth hundreds of billions, intended to create strategic dependence between member states and Brussels. It hardly seems that Europe is preparing for peace, and even if an agreement is reached, the EU will remain paranoid and continue pushing toward a war that, in reality, will not occur. Anyone who believes that, after the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian Federation,,no matter how strong some perceive it, could still initiate a new conflict on European soil is simply naïve.
The European states that have pushed Ukraine to continue this war for almost four years are, paradoxically, the same ones that have kept Russia’s economy alive throughout the conflict. The European Union has pumped over $400 billion into Russia’s budget through energy and goods imports since February 2022. This is the truth Brussels avoids: the EU has no real strategy, no mechanism to stop indirectly funding the Russian war machine, no capacity to support Ukraine to a military victory, no direct channel of dialogue with Moscow, and no significant leverage over either the Kremlin or Washington. Europe remains trapped in a strategic vacuum, declarative, moralizing, yet unable to decisively influence the course of the war it has itself fueled.
The Illusion of Sovereignty
Precisely for this reason, European citizens should not trust a European war leadership built on hypocrisy and empty statements. As for the fight for “Ukraine’s sovereignty,” we are talking about a conditional illusion. Among the points included in the draft peace agreement, regardless of the final form it takes, are guarantees of Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. But in reality, when you depend on the guarantees of others to defend your borders, you are no longer sovereign; you become a protectorate, a pawn on the great powers’ chessboard. Ukraine has not been a sovereign state since this conflict began. The loss of sovereignty is not a potential consequence of the peace plan, it is a fact established from day one, and the European Union, which claims to defend Ukraine’s democracy and independence, chooses to ignore this evidence. Instead of reducing Kyiv’s dependence, it prolongs and deepens it, fueling a dangerous game that leaves the entire East exposed and vulnerable.
Europe now faces a truth it can no longer avoid: the security architecture built after 1991 has collapsed under its own weight, and European elites have refused until the last moment to acknowledge it. Whether the peace plan is signed or not, the consequences will be the same. Ukraine can no longer continue the war, Russia can no longer be pushed back, and the United States is reducing its involvement. The only actor left exposed, vulnerable, and unprepared is the European Union itself, which has confused moralizing with strategy and rhetoric with power.
In the coming months, as the dust of this conflict settles, Europeans will discover that it is not Russia threatening their future, but their own incapacity to understand their political, military, and institutional limits.
This is Europe’s real balance sheet after nearly four years of war: a fatigued alliance, leadership without vision, and a population that may realize, perhaps too late, that the price paid has brought neither peace, nor security, nor influence. Only a continent trapped in its own rhetoric, now forced to manage the consequences of a conflict it neither understood nor controlled.
Roland-David Sólyom
Student
