The Social World

Author: Lisa Haseldine

Is Germany ready for military service?

It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defense minister’s new “Modernization of Military Service” draft law is currently being debated in Berlin.

Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will gauge their willingness and ability to carry out military service. For men, the quiz will be compulsory; for “other genders” – including women – it will be optional. Those who declare themselves willing to serve will be invited for a formal assessment for recruitment into the armed forces, while anyone refusing to fill out the questionnaire could face a fine. Volunteers will then be expected to serve a minimum term of six months. Bar unexpected delays, the new law is expected to come into effect from January 1, with medical exams for all potential recruits to be made compulsory by July 2027.

Conscription was suspended during Angela Merkel’s stint as chancellor in 2011. But so far, it appears that, despite earlier resistance to the idea of bringing it back, Berlin’s politicians are in broad agreement that resurrecting military service in some form is now a good idea. What they can’t seem to agree on, however, is what to do if Pistorius’s new law doesn’t bring in enough volunteers to plug the gaps in Germany’s armed forces.

Pistorius has grand plans to grow the German army to 260,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by 2035. But following years of financial cuts, along with a marked decline in employment conditions, the Bundeswehr has shrunk to a nearly all-time low of just over 182,000 active personnel. Many in Berlin – but in particular Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU party – want reassurance that, should the new military service law fail to bring in enough voluntary recruits, other means can be used to boost the army’s numbers.

A working group of MPs from the CDU and Pistorius’s social democratic SPD have suggested that any shortfall in volunteer numbers into the armed forces could be made up through a randomized lottery. Defending the idea, CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn said this would ensure any compulsory recruitment was fair. Few in Berlin – and beyond – appear to agree.

Blasting the proposal for a backup lottery, the head of the German army Carsten Breuer said it would be an ineffectual way of taking stock of the country’s manpower reserves in the event of an emergency. “From a military perspective,” he said, “it is crucial that the entire year group is examined.” This could only be achieved through blanket conscription, he added.

Pistorius himself was also quick out of the gates to slam the idea of a lottery for plugging the gaps in the Bundeswehr, arguing that this would fail to bring in the best possible recruits. “One thing is clear,” he said. “If voluntary service isn’t enough, there will be no way around mandatory conscription.” Such a move, he added, would also act as a deterrent against an increasingly belligerent and provocative Russia. Hoping to make the Bundeswehr a more attractive employer and avoid having to resort to any kind of “plan B” measure, Pistorius’s draft law also lays out plans to improve pay and working conditions with the aim of improving the retention issues the armed forces have been plagued with in recent years.

The dispute between Pistorius and members of the governing coalition to which he belongs has been ongoing ever since his draft law was introduced to the Bundestag in mid-October. A planned press conference between the CDU and SPD on the eve of the draft law’s first reading was canceled with hours to go, reportedly after an agreement to include the backup lottery in the legislation fell through.

Several weeks of wrangling later, there are few signs Pistorius or his parliamentary opponents are any closer to finding a resolution. “There’s really only one proposal,” senior CDU politician Norbert Rottgen told German media today defensively. “With the procedure we are proposing, everyone has the same chance, the same risk of being called upon. That is the equality we are upholding. Any better proposal is welcome.”

Conspicuously absent from the discussion over a lottery versus mandatory conscription is any suggestion of how the government would force young Germans into the army – and how to punish those who don’t comply. It is safe to say that passing any sort of law allowing jail time or fines for such rebellious youths would go down like a lead balloon with younger voters. This most likely goes some way to explaining the degree of resistance any suggestions of mandatory conscription have been met with.

Also unsurprisingly, the idea of bringing back military service of any kind is proving very unpopular with Germany’s youth – the demographic, of course, most directly affected by Pistorius’s new legislation. Enquiries into how to register as a conscientious objector are reportedly on the rise. Meanwhile, a study co-authored by the university of Hamburg found that only 14 percent of 18- to 29-year-old men who had never done military service before were willing to put themselves forward for it. According to another survey from INSA, only 20 percent of respondents aged between 18 and 29 were in favor of a lottery recruitment system. Interestingly, it found that on balance, more Germans preferred a return to mandatory conscription than any kind of lottery.

The Hamburg study, however, may hold some good news for Pistorius. According to their research, even extrapolating just the small percentage of young Germans who expressed a willingness to volunteer for military service, Pistorious would be able to meet his target for bolstering the Bundeswehr’s numbers “without coercion.”

With eight weeks left of the year, Pistorius is steadily running out of time to calm the disquiet around his draft law. He has held the honor of being Germany’s consistently most popular politician since he took up the post of defense minister nearly two years ago. But caught between a fractious Bundestag and an unimpressed public, will Pistorius’s military service law knock him off that top spot?

November 9, 2025
How Germany is preparing for war

Hamburg

What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that NATO felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow?

This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the army would transport its soldiers towards NATO’s eastern flank in the event of conflict in the Baltics. For three days, the port city of Hamburg played host to the exercise Red Storm Bravo: 500 soldiers, along with roughly 300 members of the emergency services and other civilian organizations, took part – the largest military exercise in the city since the end of the Cold War.

In the event of conflict with Russia, Germany would, because of its geographical position, become a “hub” for NATO to coordinate the flow of soldiers and weaponry to the front line in the east. Troops from the US and across western and southern Europe – including Britain – would flow through the country toward Warsaw and on. The purpose would be deterrence in the hope that a show of international force would put Vladimir Putin off an attack that would test NATO’s commitment to Article 5, which considers an attack on one member to be an attack on all.

It would be a huge operation: the Bundeswehr’s Operation Plan Germany, details of which were leaked to the press last year, envisages 800,000 NATO troops and 200,000 vehicles traveling across the country toward the front line. According to one army source, even with Germany’s motorways and ports used to full capacity, this would take close to a week. Red Storm Bravo was a rehearsal of the section of Operation Plan Germany that runs through Hamburg.

The purpose of Red Storm Bravo was as much to familiarize German civilians as the army regarding what to do in the event of a coming war. Only a fraction of the Operation Plan Germany soldiers took part but the scenarios neatly reflected the possible challenges. Soldiers rehearsed setting up and manning checkpoints; the fire service practiced fishing a sinking barge out of Hamburg’s port; and the ambulance service simulated a mass casualty event with multiple victims.

The first day’s main event was moving a military convoy through the center of the city after dark. As the sun set over Hamburg’s port, I watched the heavily armed soldiers march toward a fleet of about 70 military vehicles, lined up three abreast. Some were small armored vehicles, others enormous Rheinmetall-branded trucks, several with machine-gun turrets that would later be manned as the convoy sped through the city. Many soldiers wore balaclavas to prevent them being identified, according to our Bundeswehr escort.

There is an art to traveling in a convoy. It moves as one, meaning that as long as the leading vehicle continues to move, the others follow in an unbroken line, regardless of red traffic lights or civilian traffic. This convoy of just 70-odd vehicles snaked back roughly 2.5 miles – a considerable logistical challenge.

At two points along the route, the convoy was stopped by pretend protests: at the first, army reservists in civvies waved banners and chanted at the convoy to “turn back”; at the second, “protesters” staged a sit-in, with signs saying “glue” around the necks of some to denote those who would have stuck themselves to the ground. The point was for the riot police to practice removing them. Groups of three took turns: a grab at the protester’s head from behind and a knee to the back, one arm twisted around, then the other, allowing the police to peel them off the ground and carry them away.

When the planning for Red Storm Bravo was initiated, few could have predicted the new significance it would take on in the weeks leading up to it. Last month, a series of suspected Russian drone incursions into NATO territory set alarm bells ringing. Alongside Germany, Romania, Denmark, Norway and Poland have all reported drone activity close to military bases and other critical infrastructure. Meanwhile, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for a total of 12 minutes on September 19.

“We developed the scenario for Red Storm Bravo last December and now reality has actually caught up with us somewhat,” said Captain Kurt Leonards, the head of the Bundeswehr’s Hamburg command, who oversaw the exercise. “Whether that’s in Poland, in Estonian airspace, or even the whole discussion now taking place in Denmark, it shows how topical this issue is, and that’s why we have to react very quickly and expand our capabilities.”

Poland and Estonia triggered NATO’s Article 4 less than two weeks apart, requesting alliance members come together to discuss the incursions. While the mood in NATO’s Brussels HQ appears to be calm so far, the rhetoric coming from individual members is somewhat more bellicose.

In comments supported by NATO chief Mark Rutte, Donald Trump gave his endorsement to any NATO ally shooting down Russian aircraft entering its territory. Poland and Lithuania have declared they will do precisely this. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: “We are not at war, but we are no longer living in peace either.” The German government intends to change the law this fall to allow the army to shoot down any drones deemed a threat. Last month, the EU agreed to move forward with building a technological “drone wall” along its eastern boundary.

The mood on the ground in Germany is clearly jumpy, too. At approximately 1 a.m. on a stretch of road just outside the center of Hamburg, as the Red Storm Bravo convoy paused to set up for the second of its two protest simulations, a whining buzz became audible overhead. Alarm bounced around the crowd of assembled press and official observers as a small black drone hovered above us. “Is it one of ours?” someone asked nervously. It was only after a press photographer was able to get a grainy shot of it that one of our military escorts confirmed it did indeed belong to the Bundeswehr.

Leonards agreed that Hamburg had seen an increase in drone activity. “Of course, you don’t always know where the drones are coming from,” he said. “Are these drones the work of a state actor that’s systematically operating here? Or do we have a teenager with a remote-controlled drone who wants to test how fast the police can arrive on the scene?”

Following years of underinvestment, the German army is restocking its arsenal thanks to reforms that will see defense spending exempt from the country’s rigid debt rules and a one-off €100 billion fund ringfenced by Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Some of this will be invested in anti-drone technology.

Following years of underinvestment, the German army is restocking its arsenal

In an army barracks in the Hamburg suburbs, the Bundeswehr demonstrated some of the gadgets already available. First to be sent up was a type of “hunter drone” capable of ensnaring other drones mid-flight by shooting out a web, Spider-Man-style. Disabling drones this way avoids having to use expensive weaponry to shoot them down and lowers the risk of falling debris injuring civilians. Once the hunter drone had lowered its catch to the ground, a four-legged “drone dog” dubbed “Lassie,” equipped with a camera and other sensors, was sent out to inspect it.

Despite these recent undertakings, questions over the German army’s readiness for conflict remain. In June, defense chief General Carsten Breuer warned that Russia could be ready to launch an attack on a NATO state by 2029; according to one government source I spoke to, this could be even sooner. Meanwhile, according to official figures, just under 183,000 soldiers are actively serving in the Bundeswehr, and a damning report published in May revealed that, at the end of last year, more than 20 percent of military positions remained vacant. The reintroduction of conscription seems inevitable to meet its commitment to NATO troop numbers.

So, is Germany prepared for the defensive challenges ahead? When asked this, Leonards said: “Germany is in the process of significantly developing its armed forces and the Bundeswehr. And I believe we’re really on the right track.” Not a resounding yes, then. But any preparation against an increasingly provocative Russia is better than none.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 27, 2025 World edition.

October 21, 2025
The AfD’s mission to seduce West Germany is starting to pay off

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party continued its westward march in popularity across Germany yesterday, securing third place in the local elections in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Preliminary results show that, alongside the outcomes of mayoralty and district administrator elections which took place in the state, the far-right party won 14.5 percent of the vote across the 396 municipalities which went to the polls. The liberal SPD party came in second with 22.1 percent, while the CDU – the governing party in Berlin – secured a third of the vote, with 33.3 percent.

The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will be breathing a small sigh of relief at the results this morning. Although these were local elections, yesterday’s vote has been treated as a litmus test for the first four months of his chancellorship, and it seems he has just about emerged unscathed. But it would be a mistake for the CDU leader to think he is now off the hook until next year’s more significant round of state elections.

While Merz’s Christian Democrats managed to cling on to the top spot in North Rhine-Westphalia, the party did marginally worse than at the last set of local elections in 2020, losing 1 percent of support. This is, however, the party’s worst set of local election results in the nearly 80 years since North Rhine-Westphalia was founded. More concerningly for the Chancellor, the AfD managed to nearly triple its vote share from 5.1 percent five years ago. These results are just the latest sign that, slowly but surely, it’s not just the former East Germany – traditionally the AfD’s homeland – that is falling for the siren song of the far right.

While yesterday’s elections concerned the lowest administrative rung on the ladder of the German state, they were far from insignificant. North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s most populous state – about a quarter of the country’s population lives there, with over 13 million eligible to vote (including 16- and 17-year-olds). Voter turnout has been projected at nearly 57 percent – a 30-year high. A flurry of visits to the state in recent weeks by the country’s most prominent politicians, including SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil, prominent Green politician Ricarda Lang and even Merz himself, demonstrated just how important yesterday’s vote has been considered in Berlin.

For Merz’s coalition partners, the SPD, last night was bleak. Winning just a projected 22.1 percent of the vote, the liberals are on track for their worst results in North Rhine-Westphalia’s history. Damningly, the party actually did better than polling done at the end of last month predicted by over four percentage points. That municipal elections in Germany often serve as a protest vote against the governing parties in Berlin is of little comfort to the SPD. Yesterday’s dire results led one of the party’s MPs, Ralf Stegner, to describe the SPD’s situation as “extremely dangerous – perhaps even life-threatening.”

This set of elections was fought primarily on issues over which Merz and his colleagues in the Bundestag have little direct responsibility. Topics such as problems with traffic and the condition of infrastructure such as local roads and bridges cropped up repeatedly. Nevertheless, some themes – such as concerns over the increase in the cost of living and housing pressures in the state – tapped into a broader national discourse.

Predictably, the AfD took advantage of voter concerns surrounding the “integration of foreigners” into the local community as a proxy to once again form their campaign around the questions of migration. Poignantly, the town of Solingen, where three people were stabbed to death and a further eight injured at a festival by a Syrian refugee last summer, sits within the state. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk once again threw his support behind the far-right party, as he did in February’s federal election, tweeting at the end of August that “either Germany votes AfD or it is the end of Germany.”

The local election campaign period was also not without its oddities. An unusual cluster of deaths of AfD candidates in the state in the run-up to the vote – seven in total – led to conspiracy theories, pushed by the party itself, that something nefarious may have taken place. No evidence has so far emerged, though, to suggest foul play in their deaths.

Ahead of the vote, Merz diplomatically promised to “draw conclusions” from the results and, more specifically, to use the lessons his party learns to take the fight to the AfD in the coming months and years. Among the many problems looming over Merz and his SPD coalition partners is a clear issue of demographics: just under 70 percent of over 60s voted for the CDU and the liberals, compared to 43 percent of those under 25.

If the two parties want to secure their political survival over the coming years, they will have to significantly broaden their offerings to younger voters. This won’t be easy: interestingly, it wasn’t only the AfD that scooped up a significant number of youth votes (11 percent): the left-wing Die Linke party secured support from 18 percent of 16-25 year olds. Berlin’s establishment parties are facing a political assault on both sides.

As a microcosm of German politics, last night’s vote in North Rhein-Westphalia shows just how fractured the country is becoming. The results aren’t quite set in stone yet: with a higher than expected number of candidates failing to reach the 50 percent thresholds to win their seats, at least 147 municipalities and districts will hold runoff elections in two weeks’ time, which may yet shift the final vote shares.

True to form, Merz has seemingly squeaked through his first electoral test as chancellor. His stuttering efforts to reset the narrative from Berlin following three largely disastrous years under his predecessor Olaf Scholz’s traffic-light coalition have yet to bear fruit – if they ever will. It is only then that the true test will come for Merz on one question alone: will he have become the chancellor who gave away power to the AfD?

September 15, 2025
Will Germany actually send troops to Ukraine?

As Donald Trump presses on with his breathless efforts to secure an end to the war in Ukraine, the leaders of Europe face a task of their own. In the event of a peace deal with Russia, how will they – in place of an America that can’t be trusted as a reliable ally – provide Kyiv with the security guarantees against Russian aggression that it craves? And even if they are willing, are they capable of delivering them?

The idea of sending a peacekeeping force to Ukraine at some point in the future has split Germany down the middle

Stepping out of the White House following Monday’s hastily arranged summit with Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, German chancellor Friedrich Merz signaled that yes, his country was willing and able to provide Ukraine with security guarantees.

“It is clear to me that we, as the Federal Republic of Germany, also have a strong interest and a strong responsibility to participate in this,” he said. He caveated his declaration of intent by saying he would be discussing everything with European allies and that any final decision regarding German boots on the ground in Ukraine would be put to a vote in the Bundestag as per German law.

In what is increasingly becoming a pattern of this fairly new Chancellor’s governance, Merz’s comments stirred the political hornets’ nest in Berlin within hours. By the time he had landed back in Germany, a full-throated debate on the Bundeswehr’s potential support for Ukraine was under way.

The idea of sending a peacekeeping force to Ukraine at some point in the future has split Germany down the middle. According to a poll conducted by the research institute Civey, 51 percent of Germans think including the Bundeswehr in a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine is a bad idea. Just 36 percent of respondents think it is a good one.

Russia’s invasion feels much closer to home for the average German – with just one country, Poland, separating them from the conflict. As such, right from the start of the war in February 2022, there has been a lingering sense of unease about politicians in Berlin dragging Germany into a war it did not start. The country’s Nazi past – still very much at the forefront of the national consciousness – makes the idea of proactively sending German troops into territory its predecessors did their best to annihilate barely 80-odd years ago sit uncomfortably with many, even if the circumstances are now vastly different. A survey from May showed that 64 percent of Germans were at least “very worried” about the return of war to Europe.

Both the German far right and the far left have jumped on Merz’s comments as an example of what they want to portray as his warmongering credentials. Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party branded his words “dangerous and irresponsible.”

By Tuesday, the AfD had mocked up an unnerving new post for their social media. Sending soldiers to Ukraine “would not be peacekeeping, but a permanent escalation against Russia,” it reads. Accompanying this was a sepia-toned image showing five frowning youths being loomed over by Merz, his smile fixed in a maniacal grin and the tips of his fingers touching in a steeple. Underneath, the slogan: “Merz wants to send YOU to Ukraine? We don’t!”

While superficially the image makes Merz look like a cartoon villain, it has prompted disgust for how evocative it is of the anti-Semitic propaganda distributed during the Nazi era portraying Jewish people as power-hungry villains. Many have seen this as yet further confirmation of how the AfD is growing increasingly comfortable flirting with the symbolism and rhetoric of Germany’s National Socialist past.

Sahra Wagenknecht, the far-left leader of the eponymous Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) also hopped on the bandwagon. In a video posted to social media on Wednesday, she warned: “Your father, your brother, your son could soon be fighting Russia in Ukraine.” Merz’s willingness to consider sending troops to Ukraine is “dangerous” and “completely oblivious to history.” “Should the conflict break out again, Germany would immediately become a party to the war,” she added. She has called for a “peace rally” in Berlin on 13 September 13 to “stop the federal government’s war course.”

If such warnings of escalation in the conflict sound familiar, that’s because they are. Following the Ukraine summit in Washington on Monday, the spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry Maria Zakharova addressed Ukraine’s allies in a statement. Reinforcing the Kremlin’s rejection of any NATO troops being sent into Ukraine to keep the peace, Zakharova said “this risks uncontrollable escalation with unpredictable consequences.” The AfD and BSW have made little effort to distance their messaging from that of Moscow’s.

Despite sitting on opposite sides of the political spectrum, both the AfD and BSW have, over the years, acquired reputations for being pro-Russia. They are both in favor of dropping sanctions against Moscow and restoring diplomatic relations. Both oppose sending weapons to Ukraine. But their calls for peace are also tinged with cynicism: the largest voter bases for both parties are predominantly located in the former East Germany, where cultural memory of the GDR means distrust of NATO and likewise a fear of Russian aggression are higher. Both the AfD and BSW are quite comfortable using the debate around a peacekeeping force in Ukraine to stoke fear with their voters.

Merz has had little help from his own cabinet in backing up his commitment to Ukraine. As the Chancellor was flying to Washington, his foreign minister Johann Wadephul unhelpfully declared that sending German troops to Ukraine would “probably overwhelm” the Bundeswehr alongside its commitment to creating a new brigade of 5,000 in Lithuania – expected to be operational by 2027. The German army has been chronically under-resourced for years: it is currently approximately 20,000 soldiers short and is struggling to replace much of the vital equipment donated to Ukraine over the past 3.5 years. While Merz eased the country’s state debt rules on coming into power, which will allow a huge boost for military spending in the coming years, it will nevertheless take a while for the full benefits to be felt.

There is, of course, also the question of what Germany’s role in any peacekeeping force would look like in Ukraine. The defense minister Boris Pistorius has kept his cards close to his chest, saying “what a German contribution to the security guarantees will look like has not yet been determined.” There is every chance that, should opposition to boots on the ground prove too fierce for Merz to push through the Bundestag, this could be watered down to see the German army simply provide Ukraine with, for example, reconnaissance data and intelligence, further arms deliveries or training for its soldiers.

With little prospect of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine any time soon, Merz has time to rally his government, prepare the army and fight off his opponents on the political fringes. But if the first seven months of Trump’s second term have taught the Chancellor and his fellow European leaders anything, it is that predictability and caution don’t come naturally to the American president. A peace deal with Moscow could be foisted on Kyiv by Trump at a moment’s notice. Merz has his work cut out ensuring Germany is prepared for that moment when it arrives.

August 24, 2025
Will Zelensky’s trip to see Trump pay off?

Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today to debrief with Donald Trump following the US President’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The purpose of today’s meeting at the White House will be to discuss the parameters of a potential peace deal in Ukraine. The last time Zelensky came to Washington was in February, when Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance berated the wartime leader for not being sufficiently “grateful” for America’s support in the conflict with Russia. Once again, there is every possibility today’s summit will turn out as tense as it did six months ago.

Trump reportedly wants to discuss the territorial concessions demanded by Putin during Friday’s tête-à-tête. The Russian President is said to have pushed to be given full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during the closed-doors meeting between the two. While Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian occupation, Ukraine still holds about 30 percent of the Donetsk region. Zelensky’s position on land swaps has thawed somewhat over the past month – over the weekend, he said the front line’s “contact line is the best line for talking.” But he has repeatedly rejected handing over any Ukrainian territory not already occupied by the Kremlin’s troops.

Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them today

Instead, the Ukrainian President’s aim for today is to once again try and extract security guarantees from Trump for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia. While the US special envoy Steve Witkoff – who traveled with Trump to Alaska last week – has said the President had agreed to offering Zelensky “Article 5-like language” mirroring the NATO principle of treating an attack on one state as an attack on all, many questions remain over what such security guarantees would look like in practice.

Helping Zelensky make his case to Trump today – and hoping to protect him from the worst of his wrath – is an assortment of his largest European allies. They include UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and NATO and EU chiefs Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen. Many of this cast of characters have been present at various hastily arranged virtual and face-to-face meetings with Trump and Zelensky over the past week or so. In the face of Trump’s cozier than was comfortable overtures to Putin in Alaska, these meetings show how anxious Zelensky and his allies are about the likelihood of the American President forcing Ukraine into signing a deal with Russia it doesn’t want to.

Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them today. Taking to his social media platform Truth Social overnight, Trump once again put pressure on the Ukrainian President to accept the as yet unclear peace terms being cooked up between the American president and his Russian counterpart. He also ruled out a number of Ukrainian demands, including returning Crimea and “NO GOING INTO NATO.”

Trump’s aggressive haste to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has seen him increasingly bend towards giving in to Putin’s maximalist demands to end the conflict – rather than securing an agreement that would benefit and deliver justice for Ukraine. While Zelensky’s European allies were quick to recognize this, they have so far failed to produce sufficient carrots and sticks of their own with which to bring Trump onside. There is little to suggest any of them will succeed in producing any white rabbits today that will conclusively sway Trump away from bullying Zelensky into accepting the terms of a treaty hashed out with Putin behind Ukraine’s back. Europe’s armies and finances inspire similarly little confidence that, should Zelensky walk away from discussions, his allies have the means to sufficiently support his country in the conflict with Russia without America’s backing.

Tonight’s events will start at 12 p.m. ET, when Zelensky’s European allies are scheduled to arrive at the White House. This will be followed by a one-on-one between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office, before all parties are due to meet at 3 p.m. What, if any, press conferences will be held afterwards are currently unknown.

Ever confident in his own abilities to strike a deal, Trump has made it known that should things go well, he wants to bring Zelensky and Putin together in person within the next week. And yet even his own Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said yesterday that “we are not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We are not at the edge of one.” The path to peace for Ukraine – and a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump – appears longer than the American president may be bargaining for.

August 18, 2025