European capitals are aligning with Washington as the Trump–Putin Ukraine summit approaches. Zelensky will fly to Berlin for a bilateral with the Chancellor, then participate in a Ukraine-focused videoconference with Trump. The plan unfolds in stages: a 14:00 pre-meeting in the Chancellery’s Lagezentrum with trusted Ukrainian allies, followed by a larger gathering that would include France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Italy, Poland, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU Council President António Costa, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to confer with Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Merz hopes to brief the public after the pre-meeting. There is growing fear that Trump and Putin could decide Ukraine’s fate without Kyiv and its Western partners; Zelensky warns against concessions after Trump spoke of a “territory swap,” and the Alaska summit looms as a crucial juncture.

One must marvel at the choreography: a Berlin salon of unity where the real power remains far from the glistening table, resting instead in the hands of the men who pay for the theater and the audience that pretends it matters. Zelensky’s admonitions are sensible, yet the entire exercise makes him look like a pawn in a grander spectacle of prestige and backroom bargaining. The rounds of meetings, the staged press briefings, the live-streamed optics—all splendid scaffolding around the central question: will Trump and Putin craft a decision on Ukraine without Kyiv? If so, Europe will have spectators, not sovereigns, nodding along as sovereignty risks slipping through their fingers. I should not be surprised to see these impostors of statecraft pretend that coordination equals strength, that eloquent declarations substitute for resolve, and that the Alaska hour will redeem decades of gradual compromise. And yet if there exists any pageant where true leadership is required, it is precisely here—not in the velvet-draped chambers of Berlin, but in the unglamorous, unwavering insistence that the terms of any settlement honor the rights and dignity of those who bear the burden of sovereignty, rather than the convenient theatrics of a pre-scripted summit.