The announcement by President Donald Trump that the United States would “immediately” begin negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine has plunged European politics into a deep crisis.

Nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, his troops are making steady progress on the battlefield

That will take some doing. Putin remains uninterested in peace talks as long as Russian troops continue to gain ground in Ukraine’s east, albeit at a slow pace, and while Ukrainian forces hold seized territory in the Kursk region inside Russia, according to John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and other former officials.