Morning opening: What does Vladimir Putin want?
Jakub Krupa
On Monday, several European leaders lined up to criticise Vladimir Putin for Russia’s continuing attacks on Ukraine, and sabotaging the peace efforts of the Trump administration in the US.
But the White House view remains distinctively different.
Speaking alongside El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, Trump once again took aim at Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy instead, saying:
“The mistake was letting the war happen. If Biden were competent. And if Zelenskyy were competent — and I don’t know that he is, we had a rough session with this guy over here.”
“You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
On Putin, his tone was distinctively different as he argued:
“And you take a look at Putin — I’m not saying anybody’s an angel, but I will tell you, I went four years, and it wasn’t even a question. He would never — and I told him don’t do it. You’re not going to do it.”
Ultimately, he concluded that Biden, Zelenskyy and Putin are all at blame for the war:
“And Biden could have stopped it, and Zelenskyy could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody’s to blame.”
But perhaps even more revealing were comments by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who was in Moscow last week.
Speaking on Fox News, Witkoff said he was confident after his latest five-hour “compelling” meeting with the Russians that a deal with Putin was “emerging”.
“Towards the end, we actually came up with – I’m going to say finally, but I don’t mean it in the way that we were waiting; I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place – what Putin’s request is to get to, have a permanent peace,” he said.
But in comments that are likely to spook European partners by signalling Putin’s broader security demands, he said the peace deal is “about the so-called five territories, but there’s so much more to it: there’s security protocols, there’s no Nato, Nato Article Five, I mean, it’s just a lot of detail attached to it.”
“It’s a complicated situation … rooted in … some real problematic things happening between the two countries and I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large,” he added.
Witkoff also added that he believed “there is a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities that I think give real stability to the region too.”
So, what, back to business as usual? That’s certainly what Putin wants.
It all increasingly makes it look, as our Russia expert Luke Harding put it, that “the truth is that America either wants Russia to win, or doesn’t care if Ukraine loses.”
On that depressing note…
It’s Tuesday, 15 April 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
Key events
Merz’s Taurus comments spark optimism among Ukraine friends, draw ire from Moscow, frustration from domestic allies
Deborah Cole
Meanwhile in Germany, comments by presumptive new German chancellor Friedrich Merz this week that he was open to sending long-requested Taurus missiles to Kyiv sparked optimism among friends of Ukraine, ire in Moscow and a not-so-fast from a key coalition partner in Berlin.
Merz, who is expected to take office on 6 May, said on a Sunday night talkshow when asked about the long-range missiles that unlike current leader Olaf Scholz, he would consider sending them as part of a wider package of support agreed with European allies.
He also mentioned that they could be used to target the Kerch Bridge, the most important land link between Russia and the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.
Popular Social Democrat Boris Pistorius, who is expected to stay on as defence minister in Merz’s new cabinet, has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest German supporters. He nevertheless took umbrage at his incoming boss’s hints that the long-range missiles for Ukraine were any kind of done deal.
Pistorius told a party event in Hanover that repeated hints he had secretly supported Taurus shipments to Ukraine all along were false. “I never said that,” he said.
He added that there were good reasons for supplying the missiles, but “also many arguments, good arguments, against them”.
Pistorius also raised doubts about Merz’s comments about coordination with European allies.
“I don’t know a European partner with such a (weapons) system,” he said.
Meanwhile Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov charged Merz with his “tougher position” would “inevitably lead only to a further escalation of the situation around Ukraine”.
Deputy Security Council chief Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president, called Merz a “Nazi” for his suggestion to hit the Crimean bridge.
“Chancellor candidate Fritz Merz is haunted by the memory of his father, who served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Now Merz has suggested a strike on the Crimean Bridge. Think twice, Nazi!” Medvedev posted on X.
“Attempts have been made to intimidate staff in several prisons, ranging from burning vehicles to firing automatic weapons,” the French justice minister, Gerald Darmanin, said in a post on X.
“I am going to Toulon to support the officers concerned. The French Republic is facing up to the problem of drug trafficking and is taking measures that will massively disrupt the criminal networks,” he added.
French justice minister to travel to Toulon after prisons attacked with automatic weapons
French justice minister Gérald Darmanin will travel to Toulon in southern France later today, after a number of French prisons were targeted with fires and use of weapons last night, French media reported.
A source close to the minister told AFP, quoted by Le Figaro and Le Monde, that the attacks appeared to be coordinated and in response to the government’s strategy on drug trafficking.
Le Figaro said that prisons in Marseille, Valence, Nîmes and Luynes, Villepinte and Nanterre were also among those affected.
Serbian students on final stretch of ‘Tour de Strasbourg’ to highlight corruption allegations
Ashifa Kassam
For more than four months, the students’ nationwide campaign against corruption has dominated headlines across much of Serbia’s media, tracking the near-daily protests that have at times attracted hundreds of thousands and rattled the country’s top echelons of power.
But since early April, around 80 of the protesters have been on a mission to draw the EU’s attention to their movement, with a 1,300km cycling journey that is set to arrive today in Strasbourg, the French city where the European parliament meets.
“Europe has been asleep for too long,” Vladimir Beljanski of the Vojvodina Bar Association told local news site N1 in explaining why he and others had decided to embark on the two-week journey. “It is important to draw Europe’s attention. Serbia is part of Europe. We are not a wild Balkan tribe where resources can be extracted while ignoring the rule of law, quite the opposite.”
The student protests began in November in response to the collapse of a train station roof in the northern city of Novi Sad. The tragedy, which killed 16 people, soon became a flashpoint amid Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian rule, attracting protesters from across the country who demanded greater government transparency.
The protests have since become the biggest challenge yet to the country’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, and his decade-long grip on power. Vučić has responded by accusing the students of working against the state and protesters have said they’ve been attacked on numerous occasions.
Months on, the EU’s response to the protest has been lukewarm, with officials refraining from directly criticising Vučić. But the cyclists said they hoped their arrival in Strasbourg today, along with a rally planned in front of the EU parliament and European Court of Human Rights, would help to raise awareness of the resistance they’ve faced.
“Instead of getting answers – we got batons. Instead of dialogue – we got censorship,” they said on the website launched to track their journey. “We grew up believing freedom and justice were basic human rights. Now we see them as privileges being stripped away.”
Jakub Krupa
Elsewhere, I will be following a group of Serbian students who are on the final stretch of their “Tour de Strasbourg” as part of the broader students’ protest movement in Serbia against the increasingly authoritarian rule of the country’s president Aleksandar Vučić.
They have been getting lots of love and support along the way, and today they are about to go on the very final stage of their trip taking them 81 km from Karlsruhe in Germany to Strasbourg, France, where they hope to get by 6pm local time.
Let me bring European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam with more on their initiative.
Key questions for Ukraine’s European allies – analysis
David Shimer, the former director for eastern Europe and Ukraine on Joe Biden’s national security council, writes for the Guardian today, asking “two key questions for Ukraine’s European allies” as he worries about the US military aid ceasing soon.
Servicemen of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine repair a T-80 tank captured earlier from Russian troops, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters
The war between Russia and Ukraine is approaching a historic turning point: unless the Trump administration adjusts course, US military aid for Ukraine is about to cease.
Since taking office, Trump has not approved a single military aid package for Ukraine. Even if Trump were to reverse course and utilize this remaining drawdown authority, the amount available is insufficient to sustain US support for Ukraine over time. To do that, Congress would need to approve additional Ukraine funding, which will not happen while the Republican party controls both chambers and the White House. As a result, the era of US military aid to Ukraine is approaching its end.
Vladimir Putin is stalling the Trump administration’s ineffective pursuit of a ceasefire as he waits for Biden-era military aid deliveries to run dry.
European leaders have stepped up in recent months to try to help Ukraine survive in the absence of US leadership. European discussions about a postwar reassurance force are important, but the actual war is still ongoing, and further planning is needed to deal with the impending loss of US material support.
The key questions for Ukraine’s European backers are twofold: how can Ukraine persist with a combination of its own domestic production of weapons, European security assistance, and US intelligence sharing?; and what is the most viable pathway to finance this support?
‘Not good for Europe to be security vassal of the US,’ JD Vance says
Separately, US vice-president JD Vance has given a wide-ranging interview on his approach to European policy, telling UnHerd that “it’s not good for Europe to be the permanent security vassal of the United States.”
He insisted that he “loves Europe,” despite his critical comments in Munich or during his recent trip to Greenland.
In most attention-grabbing comments, he once again criticised Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for “absurd” comments that the Trump administration is “somehow on the side of the Russians,” which he said was “certainly not productive.”
He also repeated some of his criticism of European leaders on migration and integration, saying that “European populations keep on crying out for more sensible economic and migration policies, and the leaders of Europe keep on going through these elections, and keep on offering the European peoples the opposite of what they seem to have voted for.”
He also warned that Europe should step up and work on its defences, as “most European nations don’t have militaries that can provide for their reasonable defence,” noting exceptions in the UK, France, and Poland.
He also called for stronger Europe, saying: “I don’t want the Europeans to just do whatever the Americans tell them to do. I don’t think it’s in their interest, and I don’t think it’s in our interests, either.”
The entire thing is worth reading to better understand the vice-president’s thoughts – it’s here.
Morning opening: What does Vladimir Putin want?
Jakub Krupa
On Monday, several European leaders lined up to criticise Vladimir Putin for Russia’s continuing attacks on Ukraine, and sabotaging the peace efforts of the Trump administration in the US.
But the White House view remains distinctively different.
Speaking alongside El Salvador president Nayib Bukele, Trump once again took aim at Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy instead, saying:
“The mistake was letting the war happen. If Biden were competent. And if Zelenskyy were competent — and I don’t know that he is, we had a rough session with this guy over here.”
“You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.”
On Putin, his tone was distinctively different as he argued:
“And you take a look at Putin — I’m not saying anybody’s an angel, but I will tell you, I went four years, and it wasn’t even a question. He would never — and I told him don’t do it. You’re not going to do it.”
Ultimately, he concluded that Biden, Zelenskyy and Putin are all at blame for the war:
“And Biden could have stopped it, and Zelenskyy could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody’s to blame.”
But perhaps even more revealing were comments by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who was in Moscow last week.
Speaking on Fox News, Witkoff said he was confident after his latest five-hour “compelling” meeting with the Russians that a deal with Putin was “emerging”.
“Towards the end, we actually came up with – I’m going to say finally, but I don’t mean it in the way that we were waiting; I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place – what Putin’s request is to get to, have a permanent peace,” he said.
But in comments that are likely to spook European partners by signalling Putin’s broader security demands, he said the peace deal is “about the so-called five territories, but there’s so much more to it: there’s security protocols, there’s no Nato, Nato Article Five, I mean, it’s just a lot of detail attached to it.”
“It’s a complicated situation … rooted in … some real problematic things happening between the two countries and I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large,” he added.
Witkoff also added that he believed “there is a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities that I think give real stability to the region too.”
So, what, back to business as usual? That’s certainly what Putin wants.
It all increasingly makes it look, as our Russia expert Luke Harding put it, that “the truth is that America either wants Russia to win, or doesn’t care if Ukraine loses.”
On that depressing note…
It’s Tuesday, 15 April 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.