Two sets of deceiving smiles mask grim reality for Ukraine
At the Putin summit, Trump gave the impression he wanted Ukraine to cede the rest of the Donbas region to Putin, so that the Russian dictator keeps not only the 20 per cent of Ukraine he’s taken by brute force, but gobbles up another sizeable chunk, including productive and defensible areas.
Putin also avoided Trump’s threatened “very severe consequences” if he didn’t agree to a ceasefire.
Now Trump didn’t want a ceasefire himself, but a permanent peace agreement, seemingly on Putin’s terms.
Then Zelensky and his European allies heard a completely different story at their White House summit.
There would be only minor land swaps. Trump for the first time said he’d back a security guarantee and allied forces stationed in Ukraine.
Trump hinted not only that the US would back this force, but might participate in it. That changed over the course of a day to a European force that the US would “co-ordinate”.
Trump announced that Putin would meet Zelensky one on one, then have a follow-up meeting of those two plus Trump, presumably to finalise a deal.
Once again we face the perpetual Trump conundrum. Is the President playing some version of four-dimensional chess that the rest of us don’t understand? Or does the appearance of chaos simply obscure the reality of … chaos?
One disturbing element is that Putin spoke to Trump of business opportunities. Flattery, the more gross and fantastic the better, plus the smell of money, are proven paths to Trump’s heart.
Putin has a bizarre ability to bewitch American presidents. He did it with a notable hard head in George W. Bush, then with someone on the opposite end of the scale in Barack Obama.
Trump has levied massive tariffs on India for buying Russian oil – greater tariffs than he’s imposed on China – and thereby gravely damaged the critical US-India relationship.
Now he’s decided that he’s not going to apply strict secondary tariffs against nations that trade with Russia after all. So what was the strategic rationale for punishing India?
If Ukraine gives up the rest of Donbas in exchange for security guarantees, it will be a severe defeat for Ukraine and the West. It will reprise the deal of 1994. Ukraine gave up the substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union, in exchange for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia.
These were worthless. It’s also clear that had Ukraine been able to keep its nuclear weapons Russia would not have invaded.
No one emerges very well. Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and took Crimea. Obama told Ukraine not to escalate and wouldn’t supply effective weaponry to Kyiv.
The Europeans, in the intervening 11 years, have not built up their defence forces nor created the industrial capacity to supply even Ukraine.
China, Iran and North Korea have been better allies for Moscow than the Europeans have been for Kyiv. So while much of the criticism of Trump’s fecklessness is valid, this is civilisational failure. Though vastly bigger in economic and population resources than Russia, the Europeans must still beg the Americans to bail them out.
On the basis of his past behaviour Putin is likely to keep stringing this out while he continues his military operations. If he gets Donbas, he’s in a good position to strike again in a couple of years.
Two sets of smiles are deceiving. For KGB men don’t really smile.
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How a US-backed peace deal could tear Ukraine apart
Which set of smiles to believe? The problem with the smiles of Volodymyr Zelensky and the other European leaders after their big meeting with Donald Trump is that they flatly contradict the smiles of Vladimir Putin after his meeting with Trump last week in Alaska.