Ukraine’s European allies eye once-taboo ‘land-for-peace’ negotiations

BRUSSELS — Among Ukraine’s European allies, there is a quiet but growing shift toward the notion that the war with Russia will end only through negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow involving concessions of Ukrainian territory.

The conversation has taken on greater urgency with the election victory of Donald Trump, who has said he would quickly end the war, without detailing how, and has signaled he could back a deal that keeps some seized territory in Russian hands. In Europe, the closed-door discussions have also been fueled by a bleak battlefield situation, with Ukrainian forces on the defensive and fears of dwindling U.S. funding.

Interviews with 10 current and former European and NATO diplomats suggest that while declarations of enduring support persist, some of Ukraine’s allies are increasingly looking to lay the foundations for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, even as the parameters of a deal remain elusive.

European and NATO officials acknowledge that talk of territorial concessions no longer raises as many eyebrows as it once did, and diplomats frame it not as “land-for-peace” but rather as land for Ukraine’s security.

“I think everybody has more or less reached this conclusion. It’s hard to say it publicly because it would be a way of saying we are going to reward aggression,” said Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington.

“It’s certainly not fringe anymore,” said a Western official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

It’s unclear exactly what a deal might look like, as diplomats weigh blueprints of “peace plans” floated since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With Russian forces in control of roughly a fifth of the country — including in the eastern Donbas region and the annexed Crimean Peninsula — freezing today’s front lines or outlining a demarcation line would mean Ukraine ceding swaths of its territory.

There is now broad recognition that “negotiations might be coming earlier” than expected and that they “will entail some concessions on both sides,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO assistant secretary general and a distinguished policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

European leaders have “a big question mark on how the Trump team will want to play it,” he said, and while they hope the next administration would push Russia to the negotiating table, they fear it may corner Ukraine into a bad deal by cutting off aid.

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