Trump’s Ukraine plan risks Munich-style appeasement, Ukraine envoy warns

Ukraine’s top diplomat in Australia has warned Donald Trump’s plan to end his country’s war with Russia risks becoming an exercise in appeasement.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ukraine’s top diplomat in Australia has warned Donald Trump’s plan to end his country’s war with Russia risks becoming an exercise in appeasement, after the President ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv and said it was unlikely to reclaim all its lost territory.

Ahead of peace talks in Munich in coming days, Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko said Ukraine would never willingly cede land to Russia, and if it was forced into a settlement that favoured Moscow, it would set a terrible precedent for the world.

“It’s very important that we avoid a Munich 2.0,” he said at Parliament House on Thursday, referring to the appeasement of the Nazis by Britain and France in the 1938 Munich Agreement.

“Because we are getting into very dangerous grounds at the moment. If might is right, it opens up lots of security issues for everybody … especially here in the region.

“What about those smaller Pacific Islands who only rely on the UN Charter? Because if sovereignty can be so easily broken … because somebody has the military means to do it, what sort of world are we going to have?”

Liberal senator and former defence minister Linda Reynolds backed the Ukrainian envoy, declaring: “President Trump’s opening position is one akin to appeasement, which is Russia keeping all of the territory that they’ve won over the last three years by their invasion in Ukraine, and non membership of NATO.”

After a 90 minute phone call with Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump said he believed a peace deal could be achieved in the “not too distant future.”

But, in major concessions to Russia, the President said he didn’t think it was “practical” for Ukraine to have NATO membership, and the country might only regain some of its pre-war territory.

Mr Myroshnychenko said Ukraine was relying on Mr Trump’s “wisdom and leadership” to secure a truce, but whatever deal was struck needed to be fair.

“It has to be a just, comprehensive and lasting peace. And it cannot be achieved without Ukraine’s involvement. It cannot be achieved without European involvement,” he said.

The Ambassador, who was at parliament for a vigil to mark the upcoming third anniversary of the war, said Ukrainians would never accept the permanent loss of territory to Russia.

“For any political leader in Ukraine, for President Zelensky, for anybody we will have in the future, recognising the concession of Ukrainian territory is not possible from a political standpoint,” he said.

“There could be some sort of arrangement, which I believe is achievable. But at the same time, legal transfer of any territory is not possible in a political context.

“It will be the territory which will be occupied. And I hope that in the free world, not a single democracy will ever recognise it.”