Trump reverses course on Ukraine, again

New Statesman​

4 hours ago

Photo byIf it wasn't already clear before the events of the past few days, the bad news for Ukraine is that Donald Trump appears to have only the most cursory grasp of the complexities of the existential war it is currently fighting, and a strong proclivity to adopt the views of the person he spoke to last.
This is also the good news.
Before his much hyped, but ultimately underwhelming, summit with Vladimir Putin last week, Trump was certain that his main objective was to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, ideally then and there. 'I want to see a ceasefire rapidly,' Trump declared on board Air Force One as he flew to Alaska on 15 August. 'I don't know if it's going to be today, but I'm not going to be happy if it's not today.' This was one of the five key principles he had agreed in an emergency video conference with Volodymyr Zelensky and other key European leaders 48 hours earlier, along with a commitment that territorial concessions could only be negotiated by Ukraine.
Yet after three hours with Putin, Trump had dispensed with the idea of a ceasefire altogether. 'It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on 16 August, 'which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.' By 'all' he seems to have meant the Russian and American delegations. There were no Ukrainians present.
Zelensky was thus, understandably, concerned, when he was summoned to Washington on Monday (18 August) to learn 'all the details,' presumably including how much of his country he would be expected to surrender in exchange for 'peace'. Rumours swirled that Putin was prepared to contemplate freezing the conflict along its current lines if Kyiv surrendered the entirety of Luhansk and Donetsk. (Ukraine still controls around a quarter of the Donetsk region, which includes key defensive strongholds and heavily fortified territory that functions as a bulwark against further Russian advances.)
His European allies, too, were sufficiently alarmed to rush to the US capital en-masse in an attempt to head off another damaging Oval Office showdown between Zelensky and Trump. Their last White House meeting, six months earlier, had ended with Trump yelling at Zelensky that he did not 'have the cards' and having him removed from the premises.
But this time, the encounter went better than any of them could have dared to hope. Zelensky had clearly learned the lessons of his previous experience, when his combat-style fatigues – which he was worn since the start of the conflict in solidarity with the Ukrainian military – seemed to upset the US president. When he stepped out of his motorcade outside the White House wearing in a black suit, specially designed by a Ukrainian tailor, Trump was delighted. 'I can't believe it,' he exclaimed, gesturing at Zelensky. 'I love it!'
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The meeting itself, at least the part in front of the cameras, was perfectly cordial. Zelensky kept his answers short, taking every available opportunity to compliment Trump, and skirted around any difficult questions. The Ukrainian president's priority was clearly to shower Trump with praise and gratitude, and to take him up on what seemed to be the nascent suggestion, emerging in the days since the Alaska summit, that the US might be prepared to offer some sort of security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any peace deal. Zelensky mentioned this multiple times, making sure also to echo Trump's recent calls for a trilateral meeting with Putin, which he knew the Russian president would be reluctant to grant.
Trump appears suddenly to have warmed to the prospect of US involvement in providing security guarantees, which he had previously seemed to reject, presumably wary of drawing the country into another open-ended commitment when he has styled himself as a president who ends 'forever wars'. 'There's going to be a lot of help,' he assured Zelensky during their meeting. The European forces would be the 'first line of defence,' Trump said. 'But we are going to help them out. We are going to be involved.'
During the wider meeting that afternoon in the East Room – attended by British prime minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French president Emmanuel Macron, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Finnish president Alexander Stubb, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen – the European leaders reinforced Zelensky's call for security guarantees. One after the other, they praised Trump's leadership and then repeated, mantra-like, the need to 'stop the killing' by providing strong security guarantees to Ukraine. (Only Merz and Macron dared also to push for a ceasefire.)
By this stage in the second Trump presidency, the world's diplomats are already fluent in the required terms of flattery, where it is safer to err of the side of extreme obsequiousness and the only limit is one's own dignity. Putin, in Alaska, supposedly told Trump that he had made America as 'hot as a pistol'. Von der Leyen duly began her remarks by reminding Trump that they had just completed the 'largest trade deal ever agreed'. She then delivered a moving appeal, 'as a mother and a grandmother,' for the assembled leaders to prioritise returning the thousands of Ukrainian children who are believed to have been abducted and taken to Russia. But when she finished speaking, it was the size of the trade deal that Trump remarked upon.
The reason for Trump's apparent volte-face on the issue security guarantees is difficult to parse, but probably best explained by his sense that a deal to end the war is finally within reach. By his own, questionable account, he has resolved six wars in a little over six months and has his now sights set on a seventh, and the Nobel peace prize that he has long suggested should rightly then follow. (Trump's claim to have stopped six wars is heavily disputed.) He seems to believe that he has already pulled off a masterstroke by convincing Putin to meet him in Alaska, when in fact, the Russian president had been hinting they should meet since January. And while Putin appears to have quickly dismissed the possibility of a ceasefire during their meeting, he is said to have agreed that the US and Europe could provide 'Article Five-like' security guarantees to Ukraine. (It is worth noting that this claim seems to have originated with Steve Witkoff, Trump's roaming special envoy, who has form for delivering confusing – and confused – accounts of meetings with Putin.) So perhaps Trump genuinely believes that this is an uncontroversial issue for the Russian side, and an area for possible compromise.
The only problem is that even as Trump and the Europeans were discussing the importance of security guarantees at the White House, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement making clear that it had repeatedly and strenuously objected to the idea of any troops from Nato countries being deployed in Ukraine. 'We reaffirm our repeatedly stated position of categorical rejection of any scenarios involving the presence of a military contingent from Nato countries in Ukraine,' said the foreign ministry statement on 18 August. Russia has also previously demanded to a halt to western military aid to Ukraine as a condition for any potential peace deal, along with strict limits on the size of Ukraine's military and the abandonment of its goal to join Nato. It is not clear whether the Kremlin is prepared to negotiate on these terms.
Pressed later that evening on what form any western security guarantees might take given these conditions, Rutte, Nato's secretary-general, was noncommittal in an interview on Fox News. 'What it will exactly mean' and the question of US involvement, he said, would be 'discussed in the coming days'.
Trump left the meeting for around 40 minutes at one point to call Putin, as one does, while the other leaders waited in the White House. Rutte later claimed that in the course of that call, Trump had persuaded Putin to agree to a meeting with Zelensky, which would then be followed by a three-way meeting hosted by the US president. Merz said Putin and Zelensky could meet within the next two weeks. But at the time of writing, the Kremlin had yet to confirm Putin would take part, merely noting that the Russian president had 'discussed the idea of raising the level of direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations.'
It is possible we are now headed towards a rapid series of summits between Putin, Zelensky and Trump that could yield an imminent end to the fighting and a genuine peace deal. In which case, Trump might finally be able to begin preparing his Nobel prize speech. But it is equally possible that the US president's sudden mad dash for peace, accompanied by none of the preparation and little understanding of the complex issues and historical fault lines behind this conflict, will just as quickly fizzle out when it becomes clear how far apart the two sides really are, and whether or not Putin was ever really interested in peace.
At a time when the Russian leader believes his forces are winning on the battlefield and time is on his side, it seems unlikely that he will agree to abandon his longstanding mission to subjugate Ukraine just to placate his 'dear friend'. This may well just be an effort to string out a putative peace process and keep Trump on side, while the Russian military grinds ahead. Given that Trump has, so far, shown little sign of following through on his threats to impose greater consequences for Putin's actions, what is to stop Russia fighting on through the rest of this year and then pushing for a peace deal on more advantageous terms next year, when the US president is likely to be even more desperate for a win ahead of the coming mid-terms?
Others, too, are sceptical. 'I am not convinced that President Putin also wants peace,' Macron said at a press conference as he left Washington. 'His ultimate goal is to gain as much territory as he can, to weaken Ukraine.'
Still, as long as they have Trump's attention, and they are able to impress on him the importance of making serious commitments to ensure Ukraine's security beyond this war, that will count as a victory for Zelensky and his allies for now. At least until Trump's next big encounter with Putin. Then, of course, the policy could just as easily change again.
[See also: The great big anti-climax in Alaska]
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