New Delhi, June 7 -- They gathered again, in another capital, around the same man. Keir Starmer brought Volodymyr Zelensky together with Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz on Sunday, the latest in a long sequence of European summits convened to tell Ukraine it is not alone. The handshakes were warm and the language was firm. What was missing, as it has been for some time, was any sign that the gathering could change the course of the war it was called to address.

the leaders of Britain, France and Germany closing ranks, a photograph, a statement of resolve. Europe has become fluent in the grammar of support. The harder sentences, about how the war actually ends, it still cannot finish.

The timing made the gap plain. Only days before, Vl...