Europe alone is not responsible for helping Ukraine bring an end to its war with Russia, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas warned, Politico reports.
That is particularly true when considering President Donald Trump’s pledge to halt the fighting, she said in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
“He was the one who promised to stop the killing,” Kallas said. “So it can't be on us.”
Her comments come as Ukraine and its allies try to divine the meaning of Trump’s sudden about-face on the war between Kyiv and Moscow.
In a Truth Social post earlier this week, Trump wrote that he believed Ukraine “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.” He added that this would come with the support of the European Union and NATO, which “can do what they want” with American weapons.
While many European officials welcomed the more supportive shift in tone toward Ukraine, some cautioned that Trump might be suggesting that he intends to pull back American involvement and absolve Washington of responsibility.
There is no NATO without the U.S., said Kallas, the high representative for foreign affairs of the European Commission.
“America is the greatest ally in NATO. So if you talk about what NATO should do, that also means what America should do,” she said.
Trump has recently piled pressure on NATO countries to completely stop importing Russian oil and gas, and he has made this cutoff a condition for Washington moving forward with its own tariffs or sanctions against Moscow.
“Trump has been right,” Kallas said. “We have decreased our oil and gas purchases by 80 percent, which means that if everybody did what we do, there could be a bigger effect. We have done 19 packages of sanctions. If allies would mirror them, the war would be over sooner.”
