Le Pen has advocated lifting EU sanctions on Russia since 2017. A President Le Pen would suspend France’s bilateral aid to Ukraine and would also threaten Kyiv’s EU membership prospects and the bloc’s sanctions regime against Russia, according to the analysis.
Ukraine remains heavily dependent on U.S. early-warning intelligence, particularly to detect incoming Russian ballistic missiles. Europe is unlikely to replicate that capability fully before 2030.
There is little prospect of serious peace talks before the end of winter, despite the attention surrounding discussions in Abu Dhabi this week, Rahman wrote. That makes much of the current diplomatic noise largely irrelevant to the fight in the near term.
She is threatening to veto the bloc’s next seven-year budget, including a proposed 100 billion-euro facility for Ukraine.
The EU’s economic sanctions are due for renewal in July 2027. A French veto could bring them to an end.
Ukraine’s membership of the EU would become virtually impossible, the analysis said, because key decisions require unanimity and Le Pen has already opposed Kyiv’s accession. Despite their public commitments, many EU governments harbour serious reservations about admitting Ukraine.
Russia has powerful incentives to escalate the war over the coming months in an attempt to break Ukraine’s economy and civilian morale, the analysis said.
Ukraine would accept a settlement on Russia’s terms only if it had no other choice. Under such a deal, Russia would get constitutional recognition of its annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk, and possibly of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Ceding the rest of the Donbas would leave tens of thousands of civilians under Russian occupation. Others who managed to be evacuated would add to Ukraine’s internally displaced population.
After an unprovoked invasion and almost five years of Russian attacks on civilians, Ukrainians would see that deal as a humiliating defeat, Rahman wrote. If Ukraine could no longer keep fighting, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would face two bad options: overrule the vote and impose a deeply unpopular deal, or resign and leave a vacuum for the next government to fill.
The weak security framework of a deal on Russia’s terms would make a later return to war possible. Most dangerous of all, Russia would probably use the pause to rebuild its economy and army, and the threat of re-invasion and political instability would stall reconstruction.
Over time, the sense of betrayal would harden into resentment of Western partners and of Kyiv’s wartime elites alike, the analysis said. Europe would be left with a broken, embittered and heavily armed state on its border, and an emboldened Russia behind it.