European leaders are weary of President Donald Trump’s push to secure a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, with the European Union’s top diplomat saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t really want peace.’
Trump on Thursday said his administration had been in ‘very good talks with Russia,’ though he did not expand on whether any tangible progress in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine had begun.
Some NATO allies, as well as the U.S.’s decades-old partners, are increasingly frustrated with President Trump’s controversial comments about Ukraine in what has been perceived as a cost of Washington bettering ties with Moscow.
‘[The] U.S. is talking to Russia, and you have to establish contacts,’ EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told Fox News Digital in a sit-down interview. ‘But right now, Russia doesn’t really want peace.
‘[Russia] … wants us to think that they can wait us out and that time is on their side, but it’s not really so,’ she continued. ‘If we increase the pressure, economic pressure on them, but also political pressure, if we support Ukraine so that they would be stronger on the battlefield, then they would also be stronger behind the negotiation table.’
The warning comes as Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to secure a minerals deal on Friday in what some hope could eventually help ceasefire discussions.
Trump has championed his ability to re-enter talks with Russia and his successful demands that NATO nations share more of the economic burden in securing Ukraine.
NATO allies did drastically ramp up their defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but the stark reversal of U.S. policy in Ukraine between the Trump and Biden administrations has sent some European nations reeling.
While some allies, like the U.K., are looking to prove to Trump that Washington and London have more shared values than not, other leaders, like the incoming chancellor of Germany, are looking to distance themselves from the U.S., a position Berlin has not taken since the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II.
Kallas, in speaking with Fox News Digital, also looked to remind the Trump administration of the important value of the NATO alliance and emphasized the only time Article 5 has been called in the 76 years since the alliance was formed was after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
‘In terms of … international security, we need to work together with the Americans, who have been our allies for a very, very long time,’ she said. ‘And we have been there for America.’
Kallas, who served as the first female prime minister of Estonia, pointed to the sacrifices that NATO troops made in aiding the U.S. fight in the War on Terror.
‘We, as Estonia, lost as many soldiers per capita as the United States,’ she said. ‘We were there for you when you asked for help.
‘That’s why it’s painful to hear messages that, you know, we don’t care about our European allies. It should work both ways,’ Kallas added.
The EU chief diplomat has repeatedly urged the U.S. and European nations not to let Putin succeed in dividing the West over Ukraine.
Ultimately, she argued that the U.S. needs to remain a steadfast partner with Europe in deterring Russian aggression because it is not only Putin that poses an active threat to the collective alliance.
Kallas visited Washington this week to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and lawmakers about vital issues that affect the EU-U.S. security partnership, though her meeting with Rubio was canceled.
The State Department did not confirm why the meeting was canceled without being rescheduled during her stay in Washington, though Kallas said that after positive discussions with Rubio at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, she if confident communication will remain ongoing.
‘There’s a lot to discuss, from Ukraine to the Middle East, also what is happening in Africa, Iran – where we have definitely mutual interest to cooperate – and not to mention China as well,’ Kallas said. ‘There are a lot of topics that we can do [work] together with our transatlantic partners.’
