{"id":424154,"date":"2025-04-11T17:17:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T15:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/04\/11\/ucraina-witkoff-putin-healey-kallas\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T18:06:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:06:59","slug":"misunderstandings-among-kyivs-allies-play-into-moscows-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/04\/11\/misunderstandings-among-kyivs-allies-play-into-moscows-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Misunderstandings among Kyiv’s allies play into Moscow’s hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – While the White House special envoy meets with Putin in Moscow<\/strong>, in Europe Ukraine’s allies continue to discuss<\/strong> how to ensure peacekeeping in the former Soviet republic once\u00a0a pause in the fighting is reached. But not everyone is on the same page<\/strong>, neither between the two sides of the Atlantic nor, it seems, within the Old Continent.<\/p>\n

For example, there did not seem to be much harmony this morning (April 11) between Kaja Kallas<\/strong> and John Healey<\/strong>, at least judging from the thoughts\u00a0shared separately by the two with the press. The EU High Representative for Foreign Policy claimed that she did not get the “clarity” she expected<\/strong> from the meeting of defence ministers from the coalition of the willing<\/strong>, held yesterday at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Different member states have different views<\/strong>,” explained the former Estonian premier, “and discussions are moving forward.”<\/p>\n

\"Kaja<\/a>
The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas (photo: European Council)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This observation prompted the British Defence Minister to offer a clarification a few hours later: the plans being developed<\/strong> at the coalition level are “real, substantive, and well advanced<\/strong>,” Healey said, adding that “the EU is not part of that planning<\/strong>.” In fact, the reins of the group\u2014comprised of some 30 countries including many EU members (but not all), and of which the United States is not a member\u2014are solidly in the hands of London and Paris<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

With regard to the contents of these plans, yesterday’s meeting revealed the four cornerstones<\/strong> around which the operations of the so-called “reassurance force<\/strong>” (which will not be a force for <\/a>peacekeeping<\/a>) are to be pivoted: security in the skies<\/strong>, security in the Black Sea<\/strong>, end of land fighting,<\/strong> and reinforcement of the Ukrainian armed forces<\/strong>. The latter, Kyiv’s allies have been repeating for weeks, will be the central element of deterrence<\/strong> against potential new Russian aggression.<\/p>\n

The main problem at this stage is that, to proceed with working out the details, it is necessary\u00a0to know the terms of a potential ceasefire<\/strong>. Lacking the latter, it is difficult for the military leadership to devise precise plans. Moreover, all the “willing” ones continue to reiterate the need for Washington to provide some asset<\/strong>\u2014intelligence sharing, air cover or even ground troops\u2014to further ensure peacekeeping. Still, the star-studded administration has outright\u00a0denied any military involvement<\/strong> in the former Soviet republic.<\/p>\n

\n

In Brussels today, Defence Ministers and military leaders came together to build the momentum and progress of our Coalition of the Willing.<\/p>\n

We stand by Ukraine in the fight, and we will stand by Ukraine in the peace. pic.twitter.com\/Y0mJkTRH5u<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 John Healey (@JohnHealey_MP) April 10, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be it\u00a0as it may, Healey chaired today’s meeting of another group, the so-called Contact Group for Ukraine<\/strong> (otherwise known as the Ramstein Group), which has about fifty members, including the U.S.. However, today’s meeting was the first in which\u00a0Washington was not the\u00a0host<\/strong> (the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth<\/strong>, was remotely connected).\u00a0At the end of the meeting, His Majesty’s Secretary of Defence announced\u00a0<\/span>new aid to Kyiv totalling more than 21 billion<\/strong>, called “a record increase in military funding for Ukraine.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, in these same hours,\u00a0<\/span>Steve Witkoff<\/strong>\u2014the chief negotiator designated by\u00a0<\/span>Donald Trump<\/strong>\u00a0to lead the negotiations between Washington, Kyiv and Moscow (despite his official title being that of special envoy for the Middle East)\u2014arrived in the Kremlin to personally meet\u00a0<\/span>Vladimir Putin<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0Before landing in the Federation capital, Witkoff met in St. Petersburg with Kirill Dmitriev<\/strong>, Putin’s investment envoy.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a>
Steve Witkoff, the White House special envoy to the Middle East (photo: Mandel Ngan\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov<\/strong> said that during the face-to-face meeting, the two “might discuss” a next meeting between Putin and Trump<\/strong>, but gave no further details and anticipated that from today’s visit, “no significant breakthrough<\/strong> should be expected.” Meanwhile, on Truth Social<\/i>, the White House tenant wrote, “Russia needs to get moving<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

The diplomatic negotiations<\/strong> for a ceasefire are frozen<\/a> since the Russian president set a series of maximalist conditions<\/a> to agree to a pause in hostilities<\/strong>, which consequently have never ceased, despite Kyiv’s willingness (in principle) to a truce. On the ground, the situation has long been turning in favour of Moscow’s military<\/strong>, to the point that several analysts agree that the launch of a new spring offensive by the Federation<\/strong> is imminent, to further advance the front line and come to the negotiating table from an even stronger position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the European chancelleries that, on paper, support Ukrainian resistance, there is not yet full agreement on how the “reassurance force” should operate once a truce is reached. Meanwhile, Witkoff and Putin are talking about it in the Kremlin, but there are no high expectations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":398006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26411,25907,26458,26327,25802,30795,31003,30707],"class_list":["post-424154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-coalition-of-the-willing-en","tag-john-healey-en","tag-steve-witkoff-and"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424154"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424160,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424154\/revisions\/424160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}