An exchange of 175 prisoners of war and some wounded soldiers, talks covering Iran and Israel, Russia’s “legitimate interests” in the field of security and “expert groups” convened to discuss an eventual peace settlement over Ukraine. Even ice hockey games.
There was plenty of ground that presidents Trump and Putin covered during their 90-minute discussion – but only a limited ceasefire, for a month, covering energy and infrastructure, coupled with a proposal to end the flow of arms and intelligence to Ukraine. President Putin has given the least he could possibly get away with to President Trump without actually saying “nyet”. The fighting on the front line goes on.
Nothing that has emerged about Trump’s phone call with Vladimir Putin – one that reportedly went “very well” – suggests that the Russian president is in any hurry to settle the war he started three years ago.
Mr Trump certainly does want to put a stop to the fighting he used to boast he could end “within 24 hours”. However, if President Putin wants to play for time, and President Trump is reluctant to exert any serious pressure on him, then the ceasefire will just have to wait. Not indefinitely, perhaps, but at the pleasure of the Kremlin.
Even with the resumption of US military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, the Russian “meat grinder”, augmented with North Korean cannon fodder, will probably continue to help Russia make modest gains on the ground in the short run. Certainly, its Chinese and Iranian friends are as willing as ever to supply materials and bust the sanctions.
Following the phone call, presidents Trump and Putin can be said to have more in common than that which divides them. Both want to end the war, albeit on slightly different terms and timescale. Both want to normalise Russian-American relations. Both are “strongmen” – impatient, if not contemptuous, of democracy and “European” liberal values.
The historic geopolitical shift that the Trump-Putin call represents goes beyond any previous thawing of relations between the two countries, during either the 1970s era of detente or since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. Everything that has happened since Donald Trump was elected last November – from the bust-up in the Oval Office with Volodymyr Zelensky to the warmth of the US-Russia relationship – is a mere confirmation of Europe’s worst fears.
In such a context, things were never going to go well for Ukraine and its European allies. And so it seems to be proving.
We should also bear in mind at this juncture how poignant this situation is for President Zelensky. As always in this peace process, it is worth taking a step back and realising the full enormity of what is unfolding before us. The people of Ukraine, victims of unprovoked and bestial military aggression, are having their country and its “assets” dismembered by the leaders of both Russia and the United States, with their president reduced to a mere bystander, at best. Imagine any country being asked to accept that its land, people and resources be carved up by others – and that if it didn’t like the outcome, it would be forced to fight to the death and almost certain extinction.
Putin is plainly negotiating on his own behalf, with maximalist demands for territory and material assets, with time on his side militarily. He can do so safe in the knowledge that Mr Trump is desperate for a deal – virtually any deal, so that he can proceed with normalising relations with Russia, an outrageous appeasement – and, however fancifully, chasing a Nobel Peace Prize
Equally clearly, the personal interests of President Trump and those of the United States are not aligned with those of Ukraine. If they were, then these talks might have some hope of approximating an end to the conflict that would guarantee future security for Ukraine, rather than enshrine an unjust peace.
Trump has already delivered to Putin victory from the jaws of Russia’s impending defeat. As the former British secretary Ben Wallace has rightly said, the Russian economy is probably about a year away from collapse. Putin has lost more than 800,000 soldiers so far – a substantial figure, even for a country like Russia where life is cheap.
It is not just Ukraine that is at stake as President Putin outplays President Trump. Democracy, freedom, international law, the rules-based post-war system, and the Atlantic Alliance all stand in jeopardy as America slides towards authoritarianism. America is thus a loser, too, sacrificing its role as the leader of the free world, its closest international friends and allies, and even its self-respect in favour of a supposed friendship with the most untrustworthy man on the planet and his small, corrupt, kleptomaniac economy.
Mr Trump, astonishingly, has hinted at a new three-way axis, running from Washington through Moscow to Beijing, with himself, President Putin and President Xi as a modern-day Big Three. Mr Trump seems not to be entirely able to make his mind up about China, slapping tariffs on it at the same time as inviting President Xi to the inaugural festivities. But it may be that Taiwan, like Ukraine, will be another loser in this more chaotic, irrational and uncivilised new world order.
European unity no longer feels like an option, but an imperative.
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