For both Putin and Zelensky, the situation is becoming untenable
Sunday, 8 February 2026

As transatlantic relations have fallen into crisis and the United States is tightening the screws on Cuba and Iran, Russia and Ukraine were required by the U.S. to strike a deal in Abu Dhabi.

Progress has been made. According to Ukrainian President Zelensky, agreement has been reached with the United States on security guarantees. For months there has been talk of “Article 5–like” guarantees that would come into force if Zelensky were to voluntarily give up the entire Donbas and Russia were then to violate an agreement.

According to the Financial Times, Ukraine would have to absorb the first blow with an armed force of 800,000 troops. If that fails, primarily European forces would come to its aid, and if that still has no effect, the Americans could step in. It sounds interesting, but first a ceasefire would have to be reached.

How complex the negotiations is becomes clear from Russia’s persistent demand that the root causes of the conflict be removed. What those causes are varies depending on which senior Russian official is speaking, but it is certain that Ukraine is seen as a NATO vassal state, with both Ukraine and NATO posing a threat to Russia. According to Putin, that threat must be eliminated. But this will not succeed if Europeans are not allowed to have a say. Russia does not want that and believes it can make agreements with Trump over the heads of the Europeans on spheres of influence and limitations on NATO’s military power. In recent weeks, Putin has therefore done everything he can to get Trump on his side.

Putin has reluctantly agreed to direct negotiations with Ukraine. Here too, he is trying to play Trump. In doing so, he makes clever use of Trump’s fickleness and impatience. Putin continues to emphasize the results of “Alaska.” What those results exactly are is unclear, but it is certain that during his meeting with Putin in August last year, Trump said that in exchange for peace, Ukraine would have to give up territory. But Ukraine does not want to relinquish the rest of the Donbas, which at the current pace would only be conquered by Russia around August next year.

Via Trump, Putin wants to obtain that territory without having to fight for it, in order to sell at least some form of victory to the Russian people. After all, his war propaganda is built on the alleged “Ukrainian aggression” against Luhansk and Donetsk, which together form the Donbas. Moreover, Sloviansk, located in the unoccupied part of the Donbas, is of symbolic significance. It was here that Putin encouraged the pro-Russian separatist uprising in 2014.

In Abu Dhabi neither Putin nor Zelensky were willing to budge. Yet the situation is becoming untenable for both sides. Zelensky, due to the suspension of U.S. weapons deliveries, is now dependent on European arms purchases in the United States and on suppliers within Europe itself. But all these European efforts are far from guaranteed.
For Putin, the losses are too great, too little territory is being conquered, and the economy is increasingly groaning under a war that costs roughly €170 billion per year. Oil prices have collapsed, and Russia’s shadow fleet is being targeted ever more aggressively.

The solution is a ceasefire along the existing front line, followed by negotiations on a final settlement. Zelensky is open to this, but Trump would have to put pressure on his “friend” Putin. So far, Trump has shown no willingness to do so.

Originally published in Trouw on 5 February 2026: “Voor zowel Poetin als Zelensky wordt de situatie onhoudbaar”.

If the U.S. leaves NATO, Rutte will be blamed
Sunday, 1 February 2026

According to the Russian government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, whoever bows to Trump will keep on bowing. European government leaders appear to share Peskov’s conclusion. This became clear last week when they defused the Greenland crisis by threatening economic retaliation if Trump were to actually seize the territory.

Precisely for that reason, NATO Secretary General Rutte was sharply rebuked by allies this week over his “daddy diplomacy.” “Trump is not my daddy,” responded Charles Michel, the former President of the European Council.

Rutte was also taken to task over his remark that Europe cannot do without the Americans. According to him, defense budgets would then have to rise to 10 percent of GDP.

I understand Rutte. He has to keep NATO together. If America withdraws, he will get the blame.

Yet a number of allies appear to be reckoning with a separation. The French foreign minister was outspoken: Europe must take charge of its own security. The Spanish Member of the European Parliament Sánchez Amor wondered whether Rutte had not become the American ambassador to NATO.

Politicians must acknowledge that we are in the midst of a transatlantic divorce, but they find it harder to accept than I do. That is understandable. They—not I—are the ones who will have to clean up the mess of the separation.

That we are in a divorce was also evident from the recent American defense strategy. Telling is the comparison of the GDP of NATO member states without the US versus Russia: 26 versus 2 trillion dollars. Conclusion: Europeans can defend themselves. If Europeans can do that, America and Europe no longer need each other. That is why Europe must prepare for a NATO without America.

To me it is crystal clear that in the short term we can continue militarily without America. It is a matter of will. But time is running out. 

Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen asked in Berlin how long America can still be an ally. That is a legitimate question.

Why should one keep a proper distance from ideological adversaries such as Russia and China, but not from America?

It is painful to have to conclude that America is ideologically drifting away from us because Trump has traits reminiscent of the Italian fascist leader Mussolini. Like Trump, he saw himself as an infallible, totalitarian leader. Like Mussolini, Trump is extremely nationalist, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal. Like Mussolini, Trump is imperialist. The equivalent of Mussolini’s corporatism is the kleptocracy that Trump forms together with the tech companies. Autarky is also the goal under Trump. ICE is emerging as the equivalent of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, cracking down hard on political opponents. See Minneapolis.

The direct consequence is that Europe is also economically disentangling itself from the US, without severing ties completely. The trade agreement the EU concluded with India this week is a step forward. More agreements will follow.

Whether Trump will accept this remains to be seen. This means that Europe must scale down the relationship while simultaneously threatening devastating import restrictions if Trump seeks to prevent this. He can do so through additional tariffs, by halting exports of LNG, or by cutting off our access to American data centers.

This requires recognition that the world is fragmenting, a clear strategy, and greater European unity and leadership, both at the European and national levels.

If that does not happen, Peskov will be proven right.

Originally published in Trouw on 29 January 2026: “VS uit de Navo? Dan krijgt Rutte de schuld”.

The situation in Europe is far more serious than many think
Sunday, 25 January 2026

Will we in Europe ever move beyond the stage of believing we live in a world we wish for, rather than the world as it actually is? In that desired world, values matter more than interests. Populations seem more concerned about the suffering of people in Gaza or Iran than about their own security, which Trump is putting at risk.

The situation in Europe is far more serious than many realize. Trump has abandoned Ukraine and has taken Russia’s side. Ukraine does not interest him in the slightest. The same applies to the defense of allies against an increasingly aggressive Russia.

In Davos, he reiterated his desire to acquire Greenland, thereby further increasing the threat to Europe. The dominoes could begin to fall: if Greenland is forced to become American, NATO will fall as well. If NATO falls, there will be no reason at all for Putin to restrain himself from committing aggression against, for example, the Baltic states. If that happens, Europeans will have little choice. They would then have to abandon Ukraine and focus entirely on defending their own territory.

At the same time, Trump is trying to dismantle the EU. Economically, the bloc is a superpower that stands inconveniently in Trump’s way.

How insane the current situation is becomes clear from the fact that Greenland is a NATO matter—after all, it concerns the security of the Arctic region—yet it is the EU that must deploy its economic instruments of power. NATO’s impotence makes clear that, just as during Trump’s first term, the organization is effectively brain-dead.

If institutions such as NATO and international law collapse, there is little left to protect smaller countries against great powers. The necessity of such protection was made clear by the devastating First and Second World Wars. That lesson has not been forgotten in Europe, but Trump, Putin, and Xi simply don’t care.

The current situation is reminiscent of the run-up to the Second World War. Like Hitler, Trump is overturning our worldview. And just like the British prime minister at the time, Chamberlain, Europeans are trying to calm the situation around Greenland with deals and diplomacy.

Leaders keep insisting that we cannot do without America and that this country is our ally. But they forget that, just as before the Second World War, we are dealing with a new kind of imperialism in which the law of the strongest prevails and new spheres of influence are being defined.

After the Second World War, European countries realized that cooperation was necessary. The threat from the Soviet Union was too great. This led to the creation of NATO. The same applies today. Without a stronger EU, the individual member states will lose. That decline would then not be caused by Trump, Putin, or Xi, but by the failure of our own political leaders.

The WEF in Davos was a litmus test. Did leaders remain stuck in a bygone world, or did they set power against power? Most leaders were hesitant, but those who actually had to deal with Trump—the Canadian Prime Minister Carney and the governor of California, Newsom—called for a hard-line stance.

Originally published in Trouw on 23 January 2026: “De situatie in Europa is veel ernstiger dan velen denken”.