https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/24/opinion/europe-special-envoy-russia-ukraine/
A glimmer of hope in the Ukraine war
Europe weighs a step it has long resisted.
By Stephen Kinzer – Boston Globe - June 24, 2026
Six weeks after war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, Western leaders deputized British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to fly to Ukraine and warn its leaders against signing a peace accord. His message, according to a source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was simple: “Putin is a war criminal — he should be pressured, not negotiated with.” That has remained Europe’s policy ever since. It may now be changing. European leaders are considering naming an envoy to Moscow.
That would be a welcome step. During wartime, it is never a good idea to lose contact with the enemy. Yet for the last four years, European leaders have maintained a firm policy of not speaking with Russian leaders or diplomats. That was always unwise, but today it is more dangerous than ever. Tension between Russia and its enemies in Europe — Ukraine, NATO, and the European Union — is reaching new heights.
The most graphic evidence of this escalation came with a Ukrainian drone strike on the Russian city of St. Petersburg this month, just as a major international economic conference was about to start. “Our long-range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers,” Zelenskyy told his Russian counterpart in an open letter. “As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities.”
President Vladimir Putin said that if there are attacks on the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Lithuania and Poland, “the Russian Federation has all the means to raze to the ground everyone who tries to do this.”
Russia’s foreign ministry warned European countries against sending peacekeeping or monitoring forces into Ukraine. “The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” it said on its website. “All foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
Recent weeks have brought more disturbing portents. Ukrainian drones have landed and exploded in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which along with Poland are the world’s most militantly anti-Russian countries. The drones were fired by Ukraine and aimed at targets in Russia, but fell and exploded prematurely. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the mishaps were “the result of Russian electronic warfare deliberately diverting Ukrainian drones from their targets in Russia.” Anger was so great in Latvia that the prime minister fired the defense minister and, soon afterward, was forced to resign herself.
In nearby Sweden, also a member of NATO, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference that his country was willing to “help the Ukrainians as much as we can to direct — to help them direct — their attacks in the right directions.” Then, in another sign of NATO’s intensifying involvement in the Ukraine war, the NATO-Ukraine Council held its first meeting ever on Ukrainian soil. “This, in itself, sends a strong message of the enduring bond between NATO and Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said at a joint press conference with Zelenskyy.
NATO’s Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine program, which is based in Wiesbaden, Germany, has become a permanent mechanism for coordinating military aid and training that was previously organized largely by the United States. It oversees training, equipment delivery, and logistical support for Ukraine. Secretary General Rutte said the alliance is preparing for a “long-term confrontation” with Russia. Prime Minister Kier Starmer of Great Britain has asserted that Europe is “living in more dangerous and volatile times than at any time in my life.” Last month his government signed a defense pact with Poland that he said was designed to confront “the challenge of Russian aggression.”
These escalating threats and counterthreats raise an obvious question: With the sides so far apart, what’s the point of Europe finally agreeing to talk with the Kremlin? The answer may be that as escalation threats intensify, war exhaustion is taking its toll on both sides. A European envoy could explore what possibilities this confluence might open. Two figures who have been mentioned as possible European envoys, former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, are experienced and wise pragmatists. Sending either one to Moscow could be the beginning of a peace process.
The United States, bogged down once again in the Middle East and possibly preparing a new intervention in Cuba, seems to have lost interest in the Ukraine war. Russia and Ukraine appear frozen in conflict. A European mission to Moscow could help ease this crisis, or at least lessen the possibility of a NATO-Russia war. It would spark a glimmer of hope in Europe’s darkening geopolitical landscape.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.