Europe’s Persistence in Supporting Ukraine Is Bearing Fruit

No one can know how long President Trump’s pique with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will last this time. But the past few days have been an important signal that European persistence in its support for Ukraine has paid off, at least for now.

Mr. Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, will have a significant impact on Russian income over time. Europe added its own new sanctions on Thursday and committed to funding Ukraine’s financial and military needs for the next two years.

An innovative but controversial proposal to use frozen Russian assets as the basis for a large new loan to Ukraine was blocked for now by Belgian concerns about liability. But the bloc will continue to work to find agreement on it. Otherwise meeting the funding pledge made Thursday night would badly strain already indebted national budgets.

Even if the bloc finds the money, questions remain about whether these efforts will be enough to sustain Ukraine’s uneven fight against Russia. And, analysts say, they will do little to persuade Mr. Putin to stop the war in Ukraine or even agree to a rapid cease-fire, as Mr. Trump demands. But the sanctions put substance behind the European commitment to helping Ukraine stand up to Russia — ideally with, or if necessary, without — Mr. Trump at their side.

The European leaders can also feel some satisfaction that their repeated interventions with Mr. Trump on behalf of Ukraine have finally produced at least some American pressure on Moscow. They insist that they will support Ukraine for as long as required to ensure its survival as an independent state, though any real strategy for ending the war is certain to require serious American pressure on Russia.

After Mr. Trump’s decision to seek no new funding for Ukraine, the Europeans are struggling to find the money to back up their commitment when their own national budgets are badly stretched.

The loan plan that the bloc is trying to effect would use the billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets in Europe in a complicated legal maneuver that doesn’t seize them outright. The result would be a 140-billion euro loan ($163 billion) to Ukraine, interest free, that would only have to be paid back if Russia pays Ukraine reparations at the end of the war.

But Belgium, which hosts most of those assets, wants to ensure that it will not be liable and that the bloc shares the risks. Many details remain to be worked out to satisfy the Belgians and, the Europeans hope, to get the participation of other important players in the Group of 7 industrialized nations. A revised version is expected to be on the agenda at the next E.U. summit in December.

Still, the president of the European Council of member states, António Costa, announced confidently late Thursday night that the bloc “is committed to addressing Ukraine’s pressing financial needs for the next two years, including support for its military and defense efforts,” which are estimated to involve more than $150 billion.

Also on Thursday, the European Union passed another set of sanctions against Russia that hit the energy-dominated Russian economy, as the new American sanctions will do. The bloc advanced a ban on the purchase of Russian liquefied natural gas a year to begin in 2027. It also added another 117 vessels from Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, which have circumvented earlier controls, to a sanctions list.

The Europeans also sanctioned Rosneft, but not Lukoil, which supplies cheap oil to Hungary and Slovakia in comparatively small amounts.

“No agreement can be reached at the expense of Ukraine and without the Europeans,” who have imposed numerous sets of sanctions on Russia and hold most of Russia’s assets abroad, Mr. Giuliani wrote on Wednesday.

In another example of European commitment, the countries of the so-called “coalition of the willing” were meeting on Friday in London to discuss further military support for Kyiv.

Still, the Europeans are working hard to keep Mr. Trump onside, or at least less swayed by Mr. Putin’s blandishments.

Mr. Trump tends to change his mind often, alternately voicing frustration with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Mr. Putin and back again. Even as he announced the new sanctions on Wednesday, Mr. Trump expressed the hope that they could be lifted quickly because a broader relationship with Russia has always been part of his foreign-policy ambitions.

For example, the plan includes a “peace board” to be led by Mr. Trump, on the model of the Gaza agreement, to oversee any deal. The board is intended to oversee a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine and the exchange of prisoners and children, an issue that the first lady, Melania Trump, has seized upon. Ukraine would get some form of security guarantees — a topic long discussed by European officials but not fully formed — and more aid and a rapid pathway to membership in the European Union.

Russia would get the gradual lifting of sanctions, but its frozen assets would be used as reparation for Ukraine. So there is little in this plan that is new or that would convince Mr. Putin to stop a war he believes he is winning.

Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security suggested that Mr. Putin’s manipulations and European persistence had helped Mr. Trump to finally impose some pain on Russia.

“Putin will not be moved toward peace by charm, rapport, or skillful deal making,” Mr. Fontaine wrote on social media. “The President may now understand that — and that supporting Ukraine and pressuring Russia is a better path toward ending this terrible war.” He acknowledged that Mr. Trump has a history of reversing himself.

Doubts inevitably persist that Mr. Putin will respond as hoped to the sanctions or even strikes inside Russia. “This is Biden’s strategy redux — this failed for 3 years,” Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis for the nonpartisan security policy think tank Defense Priorities in Washington, wrote on X. “Why would it work now?”