Ukraine’s European allies are skeptical that U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s invasion are headed toward a real deal. If Trump is successful at negotiating some kind of peace that both Kyiv and Moscow can agree to, then the “coalition of the willing,” as the European states have dubbed themselves, will suddenly have to put their money where their mouths are. For Britain, France, and some Baltic states, that could mean committing their own troops to Ukraine to monitor the peace. For others, such as Germany and Poland, it could mean billions more euros supporting Ukraine as it rebuilds both the country and its military capacity.
European capitals might be divided on exactly what security guarantees might look like, but one thing that they agree on is that any Trump-brokered peace deal would not mean mission accomplished.
Even if a peace deal is agreed upon, it will remain in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests to keep chipping away at both Ukraine and its international allies. Russia is arguably much better at hybrid warfare than it is at conventional warfare, as its failure to overrun a state a fraction of its size has showed. Since long before the full-scale invasion began in 2022, the Kremlin has sponsored relentless disinformation campaigns across the globe and across the ideological spectrum—from trying to build an audience among Western leftists to accusing Ukraine of funding the Islamic State and claiming that members of its regime are satanists.
The point of disinformation is not necessarily to convince people of outlandish claims, but to sow “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”—in the words of the old tobacco lobby slogan. In the context of Ukraine, security officials say that the strategy is designed to make Europeans question whether they really want to see this war escalate.
“We are already seeing Russia actively trying to destabilize the confidence of the coalition” said a senior European security source who is not authorized to speak publicly about their work. “There are concerted efforts to remind European countries of the bloody cost of war, painting the West as aggressors that could cause this to escalate.”
Pasi Eronen Watt, a security expert who has served in the Finnish military and worked in Finland’s Defence Ministry and more recently for the European Union, said that “there are already Russian sympathizers in countries like Italy, Germany, France, and others” who are receptive and potentially influenced by this sort of information.
If European troops end up in Ukraine, experts say that these kinds of disinformation campaigns against Ukraine and its Western allies will ramp up, though they could become more directly linked to violence and escalation.
“Kremlin proxies have repeatedly made claims that Ukraine is making dirty bombs or attacking nuclear power plants,” Eronen Watt said. “It’s easy to see how that could escalate into false flags, claiming Ukraine has broken the peace agreement” and giving Russia the pretext to retaliate. In doing so, Russia would “test the resolve of the so-called security guarantees” and see exactly how far the United States and Europeans really were willing to go in defending Ukraine.
Elsewhere in the information space, analysts and officials fear that Ukraine could be strong-armed into finally holding a long overdue election. President Volodymyr Zelensky has long said that Ukraine would not be able to have an election until the end of the war—as the most common interpretation of the Ukrainian Constitution requires. However, if fighting were to stop, it’s possible that he could come under pressure to hold one. It has been previously reported that Trump himself wants Ukraine to hold an election.
The danger here, officials say, is that the Kremlin propaganda machine would go into overdrive as part of an effort to install a new Ukrainian regime that favored Russia. Russia’s election interference globally is well known, but it has reached new heights in Eastern Europe—albeit not always successfully.
“There will be a ramp-up to make Zelensky appear corrupt, claim he is siphoning off money donated to Ukraine, and generally make him look illegitimate,” Eronen Watt said. “Postwar societies are prone to external influence because tired citizens want change, or questions answered that politicians cannot answer. They take out their anger on the governing party, which the Kremlin will take advantage of.”
Of course, exploiting the information space is only one front of Russia’s hybrid warfare. In recent years, suspected Kremlin-sponsored sabotage campaigns ranging from cyberattacks to burning logistics centers in other countries have become increasingly common.
If Europeans do put boots on the ground in Ukraine, countries that contribute to the effort may see more tangible and traditional escalations.
“If Baltic states like Lithuania and Estonia send troops, it’s possible you will see Russia respond by engineering even greater flows of irregular migration into those countries or even ramping up presence near their borders” in retaliation, said Pavel Slunkin, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, referencing a tactic already used by Putin’s close ally, Belarus.
“That would put huge pressure on those countries, both members of NATO, as it would force them to consider exactly how ready their allies are to protect them, which would have to figure in their retaliation,” Slunkin added.
While Russia may not want to directly attack European forces inside Ukraine, there are other ways that it can get at the soldiers deployed.
“The Kremlin will go through the backgrounds of who is deployed and may try and discredit them personally. They may also spin stories about foreign troops drinking in Ukraine or being disrespectful to local communities to provoke conflicts with locals,” said Slunkin, referencing similar stories targeted at U.S. and U.K. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Over the past couple of decades, the Kremlin has shown repeatedly how willing it is to use every tool at its disposal to manipulate public opinion and scare off international adversaries. Trump should be under no illusion that, even if he pulls off the greatest deal of his life, Putin will stick to the agreement for very long.
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