It is not easy to follow and to understand what the strange and scary events in recent weeks across the Atlantic have been really about, other than that Donald Trump is so keen to make peace in the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022 – as pledged throughout last year’s electoral campaign – that he is ready to negotiate directly with the adversary, Vladimir Putin, to that end, even if that takes abandoning established guidelines of transatlantic security cooperation and years of Western support for Ukraine’s struggle for national survival.
Whereas he committed in the campaign and well thereafter to “fix” peace between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours after inauguration, it has now, some six weeks after his reentering the White House, become clear that everything is in fact rather fundamentally unclear as regards where the world stands on this matter of utmost importance.
Yes, direct contacts between the two former foes have been established on high albeit not summit level – whether and when an anticipated Trump-Putin summit will actually take place remains unknown, at least publicly, – and highly controversial pre-negotiation US concessions to established Russian positions have been announced after the ground-breaking telephone conversation between the two leaders. And even this has caused tremendous discord within the Western, transatlantic alliance, as we have seen, alongside serious signs that the US is in fact on the verge of changing course as regards Ukraine, and hence as regards Russia. Humiliating and belittling president Zelinskyj seems to be part of a strategy.
Still, strangely, all the current diplomatic upheavals have in later weeks been re-oriented to concern not a clarified and understandable (even if regrettable) US, or US-Russian, ceasefire or “peace” proposal – or agreement, since world leaders might be reluctant to label their initiative a mere “proposal”. Instead, current dynamics are about the US seeking to prevail upon Zelinskyj’s Ukraine to accept a “deal” on ownership of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals (“Reconstruction Investment Fund Agreement”, leaving it manifestly unclear whether the agreed US half of the fund is to be seen as Ukrainian payment retroactively for US military support until now (as implied by the Trump end) or as means of finance of added US support from now on. Leaving it also manifestly unclear if and how this deal leaves the issue of security guarantees in protracted ambiguity, or needs added specificity, for Ukrainian acceptability – as Zelinsky, with European support, has tried to maintain in the acrimonious talks.
It now, at the time of writing, seems clear that Zelinsky will have to bow under the pressure of full American might and sign the deal, even without clarification on these critical points, leaving it uncertain whether this concession – first proposed by Zelinsky last fall as an attempt to add substance to the issue of continued US support for Ukraine’s independence struggle – will at all be helpful in making Ukraine safe for US security guarantees in a possible peace or ceasefire arrangement. The enforced political need to sign the deal arises in a situation in which the US side is adding pressure – and uncertainty – by “pausing” not only military hardware assistance (based on a bicameral congressional decision) but also critical intelligence support.
But the question remains whether this US power projection now against Ukraine has the limited aim of enforcing Zelinsky acceptance of the minerals deal or the broader aim to hammer Ukraine – and its European supporters – into acceptance of a next step in the new US-Russian spirit of cooperation with a common view of how to terminate, at least temporarily, the devastating war, I e, whether the minerals deal (with all its ambiguities) is for all practical purposes a separate “off-ramp”, pre-negotiated with the Russian side (or not) or part and parcel of a larger deal towards “peace” or ceasefire on terms dictated by Putin’s Russia and Trump’s US.
In this situation of diplomatic and security quagmire, where Ukraine’s European friends and supporters find themselves struggling with the profound dilemma of having to continue to appeal to the US not to throw Ukraine under the bus and at the same time display readiness to handle the consequences of just that, the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine has become a primary, if nebulous, concern. This being the case as long as it remains unclear exactly what kind of a peace or ceasefire agreement will/might emerge as a result of continued US-Russian deliberations on various levels, including summit level.
While it is natural and necessary for the likes of Keir Starmer and (perhaps) Emmanuel Macron to keep insisting with the Trump administration that any worth-while (peace or) ceasefire arrangement must ultimately be based on credible US security guarantees, regardless of conceivable European guarantees, the problem now is the deplorable fact of the US under Donald Trump actually negotiating directly with the adversary, Russia, and in so doing seemingly ready (for the sake of “peace” and the Nobel peace prize) to make comprehensive concessions to Vladimir Putin’s interests and narratives.
One may wonder how a strategic US-Russia deal – along the lines so far indicated – would be conceptually compatible with the Russian now emboldened side accepting credible US security guarantees for Ukraine. After all, both Putin and Trump have explicitly excluded both US and NATO troops´ presence in Ukraine to “keep” or “enforce” the “peace” after a ceasefire deal. Nonetheless, Ukraine’s friends in Europe, the “coalition of the willing” convening recently in London, have felt it necessary to deal with the current ocean of uncertainty by means of pledging readiness, hoping to enhance relevance, to supply troops to monitor whatever ceasefire arrangement may emerge.
A conclusion, for now, is that we in Ukraine and in Europe are facing a worst-case scenario in which Donald Trump feels emboldened, in defiance of everything the US and NATO have stood for over generations, to push on with a strategic plan, based on his “America first” conception of world affairs, to conclude a deal with Putin’s Russia, a deal that would fundamentally sacrifice Ukraine’s existential needs of a just peace, including accountability of war crimes committed and some basic compensation for three years of enormous suffering, and one that would be critically detrimental to European security.
The problem is that these days worst case scenarios can hardly be excluded.
At least, Donald Trump should have learnt by now, some six weeks after inauguration, and with some lessons learned from the Middle East, that negotiating “peace”, or even a limited ceasefire, is never a quick fix.