US President Donald Trump is in Florida today as the talks with the Ukraine delegation to stop the war continue. There is a decent chance that a deal to stop the war will be done today or tomorrow.

However, that will involve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy giving up all of the Donbas.

That will be incredibly painful and obviously militarily it opens up the danger of the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) walking unopposed all the way up to the Dnipro which is scary.

But that is why the security guarantees are so important. Real Article 5-like guarantees that really do mean the US and Europe come to Ukraine’s military aid with boots on the ground and fight shoulder to shoulder with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) against a second Russian invasion.

That kind of guarantee will truly deter a second invasion and stop this war.

The US have offered this, but as Zelenskiy just said in Brussels, “show me the details” as quite rightly he doesn’t trust Trump as far as he can throw him. And IMHO we can assume Trump is lying and if push comes to shove the US will never send troops to Ukraine. There is bound to be some sort of get-out clause in the deal. Indeed, even in the actual Article 5 military action is NOT automatic, but an option. So the Ukraine version is bound to be even weaker than this.

As for the EU, they have bottled out of this commitment entirely. The proposal has gone back to peacekeepers which was already rejected in April as totally unworkable. I won't go into it again, but it’s a stupid idea. The Kremlin has already said that if armed Nato-linked troops from the UK or France are in Ukraine then they become combatants. Not only will their presence not deter Russia, Russia will actively target them and kill them. Then what is Europe going to do? Declare war on Russia? I think not.

The failure of Europe to put its gun where its mouth is and offer its perennial first choice of a fudge is a betrayal of Ukraine yet again. If you watched the details of the EUCO vote yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron was instrumental in blocking the Reparation Loan from going through. He played it sweetly, as he dropped off the radar completely in the run up and at the meeting – only commenting on the parallel Mercosur vote in public – but in the behind the scenes talks, joined Meloni in saying “no” to Merz. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgium have got the public blame for killing the deal, but Macron is as much to blame. This is the Macron who has been amongst Ukraine’s most ardent and aggressive supporters. The peacekeeper idea is his idea.

Now he yesterday suggested the EU open direct talks with Putin. He clearly has smelt the coffee and is prepared to give up.

All this puts Zelenskiy into an impossible position. He will be forced to give up the Donbas without real security guarantees and that will be very hard to swallow.

The one plus is that Trump is offering to force the EU to take Ukraine in as soon as 2027. This works for me. It means that Ukraine has taken the risk that Russia won't reinvade in the coming years but could use its EU membership to blossom. This basically Germany’s post-war Wirtschaftswunder model, which worked very well for them. Japan did exactly the same thing with similar results. It's risky, but we know it works. And IMHO Putin is sick of this war and willing to stop it as he also has to fix his own economy.

I keep saying the best way to undermine Putin is to enable Ukraine to overtake Russia in terms of quality of life. You can't underestimate how much of a shock that would be to most Russians.

But here too the EU is bottling out. They say “impossible” and “not before 2030” if then. If Europe were serious about helping Ukraine it would let it in tomorrow and cope. Instead, there are already a whole bunch of strings being attached to the €90bn loan that is going to be dribbled into Kyiv. It's time for bold action otherwise Ukraine will just fade away.

If Zelenskiy refuses Trump's deal he will have to fight on for another two years to what end? He will defeat Russia in 2028 and get Donbas back? The Russian economy is stressed and will collapse? Dream on. Europe is closer to collapse than Russia is. In 2028 he will be in exactly the same place as now. But with less money and less men, but maybe more drones – which is not nothing. However, another generation of Ukrainians will be dead as the demographic destruction of the country continues.