The further east you travel across Europe, the higher the anxiety levels are in national capitals about what US president Donald Trump might do when he meets Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
The terms of any future truce in Ukraine feel existential to EU states closer to Russia, more than the seemingly averted trade war between the European Union and the US does.
Following Wednesday’s online meeting with Mr Trump, European leaders were quick to put a positive spin on the outcome.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters that Trump knows Europe‘s position and shares that “extensively”, while French president Emmanuel Macron said Trump will “fight” for a trilateral meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
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The reality, however, is that Zelenskiy has been kept out of the sit-down by Trump and Putin in Alaska, as have other European leaders, who fear Putin will use the opportunity to manoeuvre Trump into supporting a peace deal more favourable to Russia.
The EU has tried and failed to get a seat at any table discussing the possible end of the war, which Russia started when it invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
The Ukrainian president has done what he can to stay on Trump’s good side and had seemed to convince the US president that Putin was the real obstacle to any ceasefire.
That was the message Zelenskiy and the leaders of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Poland and Finland stressed in their video call with Trump on Wednesday.
The big fear is that Trump will come out of the Alaska talks with the outline of a deal which sells Ukraine short in a bid to bring about a quick end to the conflict.
Politically, Kyiv will surely not give up any territory held by Russian forces as the price of a shaky ceasefire alone.
In a worst-case scenario, the White House could pressure Zelenskiy to make significant concessions by threatening to cut off vital support the US is providing to Ukraine, from weapons to battlefield intelligence. The Ukrainian leader would then be faced with accepting a bad deal, or fighting on without the help of the US.
[ Zelenskiy says Trump promised postwar security guarantees for UkraineOpens in new window ]
Officials in Brussels are concerned that a truce on Russia’s terms could undermine the future of Ukraine and, by extension, the security of Europe.
Despite commitments to spend huge sums on defence over the coming years, Europe still relies on the security blanket Washington has provided for the Continent since the end of the second World War.
The EU has bent over itself to keep the fraying transatlantic bond from breaking altogether. Ukraine could become the latest flashpoint in those tensions.
“It’s not quite a case of panic; EU capitals are taking this very seriously, but let’s see,” said one Brussels-based diplomat. “There might be something that could come of this, some dynamic that might lead somewhere.”
It is fair to say nobody really knows what to expect.
