A question hanging over peace negotiations in Ukraine has widened into something far more consequential: who gets to define the rules governing an entire continent’s security.
Russia signaled during talks in Abu Dhabi this week that it wanted to settle the broader question of European security architecture before addressing the specifics of the war in Ukraine.
Cold War historian Michael Kimmage was unambiguous about what that framing represents, describing it as “certainly Russian talking points and not only talking points but, to a degree, part of a media propaganda effort that Russia makes to frame the war as it wishes to frame the war.”
Moscow has long argued that Washington and NATO broke commitments made in the early 1990s not to expand the alliance into former Soviet bloc states, leaving Russia feeling strategically cornered and humiliated.
Yet that same post-Cold War era saw the construction of the European Union, the Schengen zone, the single market, and the euro, all built around the central premise of continental peace rather than military competition.
“Europe can mean so many things, but the European project was not designed for war. It was designed for peace,” said Kimmage, underscoring the fundamental clash of visions now playing out in diplomatic corridors.
Russia’s military record since then tells a different story: the invasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the full-scale assault on Ukraine launched in 2022 have each chipped away at the framework Europeans believed was settled.
The European Union has catalogued the international agreements Moscow has violated in that period, a list that includes the UN Charter, the Helsinki Act of 1975, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, the OSCE framework, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom gave Ukraine security assurances in exchange for its nuclear arsenal.
Hiski Haukkala, director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, argued that allowing Russia to dictate Ukraine’s postwar military posture would leave Kyiv dangerously exposed, warning against “a diktat from Russia that would result in some kind of neutralization or significant reduction in the military forces of Ukraine going forward, because that would make Ukraine very, very vulnerable to future aggression and pressure coming from Russia.”
Haukkala added that Moscow’s conduct at the negotiating table reflects a deliberate strategy, arguing that Russia is “signaling strategic intent to change the makeup of European security, to subdue Ukraine and to change the very essence of European security,” and that for Russia, “war is a form of bargaining.”
It was against this backdrop that US President Donald Trump disclosed he had raised Europe’s entire security framework with Russian officials, saying, “It’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine.”
US envoy Jared Kushner had also flagged his interest in a “broader” European architecture ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks, and subsequently traveled with Steve Witkoff to Moscow for discussions with Vladimir Putin before flying to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
European capitals reacted sharply to the suggestion that the continent’s security order could be renegotiated without their direct involvement, with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stating plainly: “We already have European security architecture in place. NATO and the European Union both have their respective roles. We must make sure Ukraine is integrated into this architecture.”
Daniel Fried, who served as assistant secretary of state for European Affairs under President George W. Bush, cautioned that Russia is disciplined and patient at the negotiating table, noting that “right now, they are not negotiating” in any meaningful sense.
Some analysts argued there is simply no foundation for a new security compact with Moscow, given the near-total absence of trust or shared strategic vision between Russia and the West at this moment.
Balazs Jarabik, an expert on post-Soviet politics, took a more pragmatic view, contending that Russia remains embedded in European security dynamics regardless of Western preferences, and that the priority must be finding “a modus operandi to reduce the risk of a horizontal escalation and potentially a bigger European war.”
On Friday, a host of European leaders formally rejected Russian demands to make the broader security architecture the central topic of negotiations, with a German government spokesperson announcing that Berlin intends to host a “Coalition of the Willing” meeting aimed at securing funding for Ukraine’s defense and forging a unified European stance ahead of future peace talks.
