European intelligence chiefs doubt US-led Ukraine peace deal in 2026
Reuters via Japan Times calls Geneva talks negotiation theater aimed at sanctions relief, Peace process risks becoming time arbitrage and budget machine
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European intelligence chiefs are openly skeptical that Washington’s 2026 “peace” push on Ukraine will produce a deal—because Moscow, they argue, benefits from time.
Reuters reports via the Japan Times that the heads of five European spy agencies, speaking on condition of anonymity, see little chance of an agreement this year despite President Donald Trump’s public claims that a deal is “reasonably close.” Four of the officials told Reuters they believe Russia is using talks with the US to pursue sanctions relief and business deals, rather than to end the war.
One intelligence chief described the process as “negotiation theater.” The phrase is revealing: negotiations can function as operational cover, a way to slow-roll Western political urgency while Russia regenerates forces, adapts tactics, and waits out electoral cycles. Time is not neutral in a war of industrial capacity and manpower; it is an asset—one that can be traded for concessions without firing a shot.
The talks themselves are real enough—Reuters notes the latest round took place in Geneva this week—but the incentives are misaligned. A US-led track offers Russia a direct channel to the one actor with meaningful sanctions leverage, while allowing Moscow to signal “reasonableness” to global audiences. Meanwhile, the West’s own institutions tend to treat any negotiation as progress, because bureaucracies prefer process metrics to battlefield outcomes.
The danger is not merely that negotiations fail. It is that “peace talks” become a permanent program: conferences, envoys, security frameworks, and surveillance expansions justified by an unresolved conflict. War becomes a budget stabilizer, and diplomacy becomes a procurement schedule.
If Europe’s spies are right, the question is not whether talks happen, but who they are for: a peace process that doesn’t end the war can still deliver sanctions carve-outs, re-opened business channels, and political breathing room. That is plenty of ‘progress’—just not for Ukrainians.
Note: a Swedish-language report about Ukrainian advances cannot be used for the English site under our sourcing rules, so this article relies on Reuters/Japan Times only.