Context: The White House press secretary said the U.S. president is extremely disappointed with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the course of the negotiations. According to U.S. media, Donald Trump is demanding that the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom put pressure on Zelenskyy to accept Washington’s proposal for the terms of a peace agreement.
In public opinion polls, Belteleradiocompany head Ivan Eismant claimed to see indirect signs that "the European Union might fall apart". He said this on December 5, 2025, while discussing Europe’s role in restoring peace between Ukraine and Russia with his co-hosts on the “Klub Redaktorov” (Editors' Club) program on the Belarus 1 TV channel.
“Europe says, ‘Russia is the enemy, it is going to attack us, we do not want to receive energy resources from them, Russia must be strangled.’ At the head of all this are [French President Emmanuel] Macron, [German Chancellor Friedrich] Merz and [U.K. Prime Minister Keir] Starmer. Let me stress again: only 15% to 20% of Britons, French people and Germans say, ‘We agree with you.’ No one cares what the other 80% think.“
The latest survey data, published on December 4, 2025, contradict Eismant’s claim. According to the Eurobarometer public opinion survey, more than half the residents of nine EU countries, including France and Germany, see Russia as a serious threat. When asked whether a war between Russia and their country is possible in the coming years, one in two Europeans in those nine countries rated the risk as high or very high. This view was most common in Poland. There, three-quarters of respondents take the danger of an attack seriously.
Europeans also do not believe that Russia is seeking peace. In the same poll, a majority of EU residents said Moscow is not interested in ending the war. In France, 81% of respondents share that view, compared with 76% in Germany. In addition, most French and German respondents support keeping aid to Ukraine at its current level or increasing it.
The picture is similar in the United Kingdom. According to a 2024 poll by research firm YouGov, 71% of Britons view Russia as a hostile country, and another 15% see it as merely unfriendly. Most people in the United Kingdom also support sanctions against Russia.
