EU Commissioner Pushes Russian Concessions for Ukraine Peace

Top European Union diplomat Kaja Kallas is drafting a list of concessions she believes Russia must make to secure what Brussels calls a sustainable peace in Ukraine, sharpening Europe’s stance as U.S.-run talks enter their fourth year with limited progress.

The initiative comes as envoys from Moscow and Kyiv met in Abu Dhabi last week for another round of U.S.-brokered negotiations. The talks produced a new prisoner swap but no broader breakthrough.

During the same period, Russian forces used cluster munitions in an attack on a market in Ukraine, killing seven.

Kallas said “we have just seen increased bombing by Russians during these talks,” including strikes on Ukraine’s electricity grid in what she described as the coldest winter of the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who in 2024 said he could end the war in a day and later within 100 days, has now given both sides until June to reach an agreement.

The EU is publicly “very grateful” for U.S. diplomatic efforts, Kallas said, but she added that “to have sustainable peace also, everybody around the table including the Russians and the Americans need to understand that you need Europeans to agree.”

Leverage Versus Dependency

Kallas argued that Ukraine’s reliance on U.S. military and financial support has left Kyiv bearing the brunt of pressure.

Pressuring the weaker party is always maybe getting the results faster but it’s only a declaration that we have peace. It’s not sustainable peace.

VP of European Commission Kaja Kallas

Kallas also said it was up to Ukrainians to decide what kind of concessions they are willing to make, arguing that “Every war ends in compromise or concessions.”

Her draft conditions are expected to circulate among the EU’s 27 member states ahead of a possible discussion when foreign ministers meet on Feb. 23. Among the ideas raised publicly are the return of potentially thousands of Ukrainian children abducted to Russia and limits on the size of Russia’s armed forces and military budget after the war. Moscow has demanded caps on Ukraine’s forces.

“Russia Is the Problem”

Kallas framed the issue in structural terms. “If you look at the bigger picture, Russia is the problem. It has been attacking its neighbors for over a hundred years already,” she said. According to her, in order to stop the war and prevent it from expanding, we should have “concessions on the Russian side.”

She rejected arguments that Ukraine’s military should be curtailed.

The size of the Ukrainian Army is not the problem, because they haven’t attacked Russia. The size of the Russian Army is a problem for all its neighbors. The size of the Russian military budget is a problem for all.

VP of European Commission Kaja Kallas

Negotiating From Strength

European officials question whether Moscow is negotiating in good faith. “Everybody wants this war to stop, except the Russians,” Kallas said, adding that the aim is to move “from the place where they pretend to negotiate, to where they actually negotiate.”

She suggested Russia may see little incentive to engage with Europe if it believes it can secure favorable terms through Washington alone.

If Russia believes it can secure its maximum goals from Washington, Kallas argued, it has little incentive to engage seriously with Europe, which she said would press it with tougher demands. That, she added, is why Europe must negotiate from a position of strength.

She further said Europe must recognize what she described as Russia’s negotiation tactic: start by demanding the absolute maximum, including what has never been theirs, then escalate with threats, ultimatums and force, counting on divisions in the West to dilute the response.

Kallas cited intelligence estimates indicating that President Vladimir Putin is struggling to recruit soldiers and said EU sanctions are straining Russia’s economy as inflation runs high.

The bloc’s position, she indicated, is to shift the center of gravity in negotiations from Kyiv’s concessions to Moscow’s constraints, while avoiding a separate European track that Russia would likely dismiss.