The cost to all Europeans of letting Putin prevail far outweighs the effort required to thwart him

Sir Kim Darroch. John Ashton

18 October 2025

While the world acclaims President Trump’s undeniable though fragile achievement in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, Ukraine has been out of the headlines. But that changed overnight on Thursday, with the news that there will be another Trump/Putin Summit, this time in Budapest, in the wake of a “very productive” – Trump’s words – two-hour phone call between the two.

Their Alaska Summit was, in reality, a comprehensive failure for the US President, with Putin revelling in his release from international exile, the guard of honour, red carpet and applause, while conceding absolutely nothing on substance. Will Budapest be better? Or will it be Anchorage: Rinse and Repeat?

Welcome though it would be to hail another success for Trump’s punk diplomacy, the conclusion has to be that it looks unlikely. Putin reportedly initiated this latest phone call, and its timing was surely designed to head off any Tomahawk-shaped US commitments emerging from Friday’s Trump/Zelensky meeting: a manoeuvre that seems to have succeeded, at least for now. And in a typically Putinesque gesture, the warm words on the telephone with Trump were accompanied by a Russian missile strike on Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rih: a bouquet for Trump, a horse’s head in Zelensky’s bed.

The primary risk of this new round of summitry is that, if it fails, Trump, never renowned for his patience, will simply walk away from a conflict he has from the start blamed on his predecessor and Zelensky. Given that the majority of Republican voters want less or no American support for Ukraine, it would be foolish to assume continuing US provision of intelligence and weapons.

And meanwhile, Russian drones have flown over Poland and Romania. Fighters have violated Estonian airspace. Unidentified drones and balloons have disrupted aviation in Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Lithuania. These are the latest in a pattern of provocation, sabotage and intimidation. And if predictions of US disengagement are correct, they foreshadow some exceptionally difficult decisions for Europe.

Russia is trying to establish a narrative of inevitability on the battlefield, in which it is just a matter of time before Ukrainian resistance collapses. In truth its summer campaign has stalled. Lengthening petrol queues following Ukraine’s attacks on oil refineries are beginning to bring home the costs of the war. Nevertheless Russia’s numerical supremacy and tolerance for casualties is stretching Ukraine’s defences. The possibility of a breakthrough sooner or later is real.

The foundation of Europe’s security for eight decades has been the logic of deterrence. Success for Putin in Ukraine would puncture that logic. The temptation further to destabilise a weakened Nato and rebuild more of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe would be strong. Long established constraints on Russian ambition would have been swept away.

Since the invasion some 5m Ukrainians have taken refuge elsewhere in Europe. A further 3m are internally displaced. If Ukraine is lost, many millions more would immediately head west, in preference to the brutal oppression they could expect if they stayed put. A new influx of refugees on this scale would not just be hard to accommodate. It would threaten the stability of host countries. This prospect alone is enough to encourage Putin to persist whatever the current cost in lives and treasure.

But there is another compelling reason for him to do so. Before the war Ukraine accounted for some 10 per cent of global wheat exports, on top of Russia’s 20 per cent. Victory would give Putin a tight grip on global grain markets. Climate change will strengthen it, boosting harvests in Russia and Ukraine while squeezing them in more climate-vulnerable grain exporting countries including the US and Australia. By blockading Odesa in 2022 Putin showed he would have no compunction about weaponising the leverage this would give him.

In the early stages of the war Ukraine relied on US support. But with its astonishing capacity to innovate and improvise, it now meets far more of its own needs. Europe supplies or pays for much of the rest. There are still gaps, not least in intelligence and air defences. But these are not immediately existential for Ukraine.

The European allies may not be able to put Ukraine in a position to regain all its territory by military means. But we can shore it up against further losses and stall Putin’s inevitability narrative. This is an essential first step in opening a path to peace. But we should be under no illusions about the length of that path. Nor should we pretend that this will not be expensive in money and materials. These are difficult times everywhere and Europe’s publics will need to be convinced that their long-term security is not being bought at too high a cost to their immediate priorities.

There is one move above all that could address both these practical and political considerations. US$300bn in Russian assets have been frozen since 2022. These assets should be used to finance loans to Ukraine against a promise of repayment once peace has been secured. Lending is not the same as confiscating the assets and so would meet the proper concern of central bankers to preserve trust in their ability to protect deposits.

This modern variant of Roosevelt’s WWII lend-lease programme would pay for the weapons and materiel Ukraine will need to gain the initiative on the battlefield and defend its civilian population from Putin’s relentless attacks. Putin would have an incentive to agree acceptable terms and stick to them. There would be no new demand on European taxpayers.

Discussions on a scheme of this kind are reportedly taking place. European leaders should urgently bring it into operation, with no watering down or waiting for further developments. This would also say to Putin, Trump, and our own publics that our leaders understand that the cost to all Europeans of letting Putin prevail far outweighs the effort required to thwart him.

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Kim Darroch is a former UK ambassador in Washington and former national security adviser. John Ashton is co-founder of E3G and was the first UK climate change envoy, from 2006-12