3 Nov 2026 - 2:00pm
The latest US idea for a peace deal in Ukraine is a return to the gas diplomacy that preceded the war. For anyone who followed the Nord Stream drama, this turn of events must be one of the most ironic twists in modern diplomacy. The first Trump administration went out of its way to penalise Germany for making itself dependent on Russian gas. Congress claimed to be strengthening European security by placing the operators of the pipeline under US sanctions. A Ukrainian commando is now on trial for blowing up the pipeline, possibly with the help of the US Secret Service. But now, all of a sudden, resuming the gas business with Russia is the big idea for peace.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that the plans have progressed further than previously thought. The idea of a resumption of Nord Stream was mooted during the discussions between US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff with Kirill Dmitriev, an economic adviser and envoy to Vladimir Putin. It appears to be the one big idea. The plan is reportedly to sell the gas via US intermediaries to circumvent European sanctions. This aspect is particularly ironic. It has echoes of the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern setting up a fake political foundation to circumvent US sanctions against the Nord Stream operator. The WSJ reports that this could provide a lucrative opportunity for American investors. Indeed it would.
The diplomatic idea behind this move is to get Vladimir Putin to agree to end his war. We should not expect European leaders to jump at this idea with joy. The European Union (EU) has passed an act to phase out all Russian gas imports by next year, a move that is not realistic. Yet the WSJ writes that Trump administration officials are expecting European resistance to be “less rigid than meets the eye”. This may well be true, given the low gas stocks in Europe this winter, the dire fiscal consequences of the war for European governments, and the fall in public support for continuing aid to Ukraine. In Germany, where total support for Ukraine has now reached €100 billion since the start of the war, a poll undertaken by the Bertelsmann Foundation tells us that support for Ukrainian EU membership has dropped from 61% in March 2022, to 41% now. As for military aid, the country is evenly split between more aid, less aid, and maintaining the status quo.
Ukraine has, meanwhile, become the single most important policy issue for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party is preparing for a summit with representatives of the US and Russia, set to be held in Abu Dhabi next year. The subject of the conversation will be the future of the Nord Stream pipeline and economic co-operation with Russia. As the US and Russia are already moving strongly in that direction, the AfD is now putting its weight behind this initiative, hoping to capitalise in the important state elections that will take place in Germany in April next year.
The calculation by the US that Europe’s resistance will soften is not entirely unreasonable. The battlefield frontier is largely frozen. The Russians have not been able to sustain their progress towards the capture of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the large remaining urban centres in the non-Russian-occupied part of the Donbas region. But the chances of a Ukrainian pushback do not look promising either. Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, most recently on petrol stations. Currently, there are no prospects of the EU getting its hands on the Russian assets held in Belgium though it cannot be ruled out that another attempt might be made. The appetite in Europe for another loan to Ukraine is low. This combination of depleting gas supplies, fiscal constraints, elections in many European countries, and strong political pressure from the US, might indeed soften the European position on Russian gas. This does not mean a policy U-turn is imminent. But, at the same time, the US calculation is not irrational either.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the Eurointelligence newsletter.
