As president Zelensky and EU leaders are heading for their meeting with Donald Trump today, they should remember that they have a whole deck of cards to play both against him and against the Russian president.
The future of Europe should not be decided in Washington, by people who have no real skin in the game and treat the war as an inconvenience that can be fixed by forcing Kyiv to capitulate on Putin's terms.
Unfortunately, the EU has been hampered by a chronic inability to take decisive action — a weakness that both Washington and Moscow have exploited.
This is in spite of the fact that it controls everything that Russia wants and has long depended on.
1. Reserves
The most direct holding is that of Russia's central bank reserves amounting to ca. $300 billion, which Ukraine is pressing the EU to seize and use to help it both finance the war and future reconstruction of the country. The aggressor should not see a penny of it back, unless he makes deep concessions in future peace talks.
By comparison, Russian assets locked by Americans add up to no more than $5 billion – a drop in a bucket. Even if Trump wanted to be generous, there isn't much he can give Putin back.
2. Trade
The second strong lever that EU has under its control is trade. Before the war EU was Russia's no. 1 partner, with bilateral exchange totalling approximately €250 billion (ca. $300 billion), including €160 billion in imports, mostly of Russian oil and gas. This figure is now down to just €35 billion and dwindling.
By comparison, American imports from Russia prior to 2022 sat at between $15 and $30 billion – about six to more than ten times less.
What's more, Russia relied on purchases of European technology products and on foreign investment it needed to develop many of its depots of natural resources.
For these reasons a detente with Washington is not enough. Even if Trump decided to rollback American sanctions, normalise relations with Moscow, unlock trade and get some US companies to invest in Russia, it would likely not make up even a fifth of the losses from the country's broken relations with Europe.
3. SWIFT
Americans would also find it hard to transact with Russian banks, given that the authority to unblock the use of the system lies with the EU, where SWIFT is located. Otherwise Russia would have to fly in suitcases of cash, like they had to to pay for jet fuel in Alaska, before any parallel system is developed, since it never bought much from the US, so a barter exchange is not feasible.
4. Justifying the takeover of Donbas
For all of the above reasons, Russian annexation of resource-rich Donbas region in Ukraine's east, that Putin is so insistent on, will be an entirely worthless achievement.
Politically the EU is never going to recognise it – but it is unlikely to accept it as a source of resource imports either.
While Moscow may have deprived Kyiv of billions from its natural wealth, it will not have any way to monetise it without willing buyers.
And the cost of rebuilding the ruined, conquered regions, will be humongous.
European companies are, of course, eager to resume operations in Russia, and Europe would be happy to buy Russian resources, but not at the cost of undermining its very own security.
As Washington hasn't passed any meaningful military assistance packages for Ukraine since Trump was elected, and it is now the EU that buys weaponry for transfer to Kyiv, the US president has willingly abandoned even this leverage.
He could, of course, refuse to authorise any future sales, but it would run counter to his pledges of boosting American industry and further discourage foreign buyers from ordering US made arms.
Meanwhile, European military contractors are ramping up output, with German Rheinmetall reportedly intending to double the production of 155mm artillery shells by next year.
As Trump seeks to disentangle himself from the war, his influence on its outcome dwindles. You could see some evidence of it when his very own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told CBS that the US might not be able to create a scenario to achieve peace after all.
In other words, the EU holds all of the economic levers and is gradually taking over the military one as well. That's why it shouldn't allow the outcome of the war to be dictated by Washington.
All it needs to do is find the balls to actually resist Trump. It doesn't matter how big your gun is, if you're not willing to pull the trigger.
