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Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
If Trump recognizes Crimea, the biggest losers are Ukraine — and the US, experts say
As Ukrainian, American, and European officials meet in London to discuss a U.S. peace plan that includes recognizing Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, experts warn that formally giving Crimea up to Russia would breach international law and potentially open the door for further global conflicts. Other experts go further, saying the U.S. peace proposal — which also reportedly includes the de facto recognition of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and a ban on NATO membership for Ukraine, while asking little of the Kremlin in return — amounts to the U.S. rewarding Russia for its invasion and Ukraine's capitulation. 'This isn't negotiation, this is surrender,' said Aaron Gasch Burnett, security expert and senior fellow at Democratic Strategy Initiative. 'The Russians get everything they want,' he told the Kyiv Independent, adding that 'the U.S. is essentially trying to negotiate Ukraine's surrender, and the U.S. is surrendering its own international leadership by doing it.' Speaking to journalists on April 23, U.S. Vice President JD Vance called the plan 'very fair,' before threatening both Russia and Ukraine to say yes to the proposal or the U.S. would walk away from negotiations. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 in the wake of the Euromaidan Revolution that was set off by then-President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to pull out of an association agreement with the EU. In response, the U.S. and 99 other member states in the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution declaring the annexation illegal. Formally recognizing Russia's illegal annexation now 'would be a clear violation of international law,' said Stefan Wolff, professor of international security at the University of Birmingham. 'It is unlikely that a majority of Ukraine's remaining allies would follow suit, but other countries more closely aligned with Russia already might,' Wolff told the Kyiv Independent. Leaving Crimea in Russia's hands would 'open up a can of worms on all kinds of potential global conflicts,' Burnett said. 'Authoritarians will learn that all they really have to do is invade their neighbor, stick it out, and then eventually they'll be rewarded for it — that imperialism pays,' he added. Even if a cascading effect of other invasions and annexations as a result of the U.S. formally recognizing Crimea remains to be seen, several candidates could take Russia's example like Venezuela with Guayana, Morocco with Western Sahara, Rwanda and the eastern DRC, Sudan or South Sudan and the Abyei territory, according to Wolff. 'Those countries might feel emboldened,' Wolff said. 'But it doesn't mean that they would necessarily get away with it because their neighbors, regional and global, might feel disinclined to tolerate such illegal land grabs.' Ukraine's neighbors in Europe also have the necessary resources to oppose the U.S. proposal, according to Burnett. 'If (the U.S. recognizes Crimea as Russian), that's on Europe,' he said. 'It will become an indictment of how far Europe has fallen if it agrees to this sort of deal.' '(They could react by) increasing their own willingness to support Ukraine with military kit, with boots on the ground in some form, or most consequentially, in my view, to finally seize the $300 billion in frozen assets and transfer them to a compensation fund for Ukraine,' Burnett added. Read also: Europe must finally take charge of its security — starting in Ukraine During his first term in office, U.S. President Donald Trump reaffirmed the U.S.'s opposition to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea by adopting the Crimea Declaration. The declaration, issued by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stated that, 'The United States rejects Russia's attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine's territorial integrity is restored.' Trump's current plan to reverse the course upheld by his own previous administration and the international community appears less of a negotiating tactic than a capitulation to Russia's demands, experts say. 'The idea that you would have both recognition of Crimea and no NATO for Ukraine on the table is ridiculous,' Burnett said. 'It may be different if the U.S. were offering (that Russia) can have Crimea, but the rest of Ukraine is coming into NATO. (At least) there would be actual negotiation happening there,' he added. 'The U.S. is not asking Russia to give up anything.' Experts say that a peace proposal that gives up too much to Russia sacrifices its international leadership by threatening its own interests, which include a peaceful, stable Europe. 'It would also be unprecedented in the sense that Washington would be siding with Russia to an extent that even Beijing has not,' Wolff said. 'All the sticks are for Ukraine, and carrots only exclusively for Putin,' said Oleksandr Merezhko, a top MP from President Volodymyr Zelensky's party. 'It looks unfair, it looks ridiculous. As a result of this, Trump looks weak, definitely not strong, not great.' 'The only thing it really does is it signals to the world that America is keen to wash its hands off of this whole thing,' Burnett said. There is no constitutional mechanism for the Ukrainian government to accept a breach of territorial integrity, according to lawmakers. The Constitution of Ukraine says that issues of altering the territory of Ukraine, which legally includes Crimea, are to be resolved exclusively by nationwide referendum. Recognizing Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea is a highly unpopular decision among Ukrainians. Accepting the U.S. proposal would likely be political suicide for anyone in Ukrainian leadership. 'No Ukrainian government has a mandate to recognize Crimea as Russian.' 'Recognizing Crimea as Russian not only contradicts Ukraine's official position — that it is a clear red line — and it would never be accepted by the Ukrainian people,' said Halyna Yanchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People Party. 'No Ukrainian government has a mandate to recognize Crimea as Russian,' she told the Kyiv Independent. 'There is simply no chance such a deal would pass a vote in Ukraine's Parliament.' Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy chairman of the Mejlis, a representative body of indigenous Crimean Tatars who have faced persecution by Russia in Crimea, said that Crimean Tatars have always supported Ukraine's territorial integrity and European integration. 'The firm statements of our leadership about their intention to continue the struggle for the liberation of Crimea are the only thing that gives Ukrainian citizens in Crimea a sense of hope for the future,' Dzhelyal, former political prisoner who was released in an exchange in 2024 after three years in a Russian prison, told the Kyiv Independent. Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, polls have shown that Ukrainians largely refuse to give up Crimea. In March 2022, 80% of respondents in a poll by the independent group Rating said Ukraine should do everything possible to bring Crimea — and the Russian-occupied eastern Donbas — back under Ukraine's control. Some in Ukraine have grown to accept the idea of territorial concessions in exchange for peace over the course of the full-scale invasion. But according to a nationwide poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2024, no more than 32% of Ukrainians agreed to consider giving away some territories to Russia. 'Our people will not accept a frozen conflict disguised as peace. We will never recognize the occupation of Crimea,' said Yuliia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister and economy minister, on April 23. Chris York contributed reporting to this article. Hello, this is Natalia Yermak, the author of this piece. In our newsroom, it's "all hands on deck" in the days like this, when Ukraine's fate is decided on a global level. Your support is essential to our coverage – please consider supporting the Kyiv Independent by becoming a member. Thank you! Read also: The 2014 annexation of Crimea — How Russia stole Ukraine's peninsula We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Folly of Realism review: Alexander Vindman on how US got Russia wrong
Alexander Vindman entered the spotlight in 2019. As a US army lieutenant colonel detailed to the national security council, the Ukraine-born officer listened to a 25 July phone call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president. Vindman thought Trump's demand, that Zelenskyy find dirt on the Bidens or lose US aid, crossed a line. He formally reported the call. In that moment, he helped trigger the first Trump impeachment. In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, a move by Vladimir Putin that Trump described as 'genius' and 'savvy' while calling Nato 'dumb'. The swift victory contemplated by the Kremlin and Trump did not come. The war enters its fourth year. Sadly, US support for Ukraine frays. Joe Biden is no longer in the White House, the Republicans control all three branches of government. On 28 February, an explosive Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Zelenskyy left little doubt that US sympathies now lie with Moscow. Military and intelligence support has been suspended. Last week, the US awoke to learn that the Trump administration contemplates deporting 240,000 Ukrainian refugees. Enter Vindman, again, with a book subtitled 'How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine' and meant as an indictment of Washington's stance toward the former Soviet republic over the last three decades and more, from George HW Bush onward. 'Starting with the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, extending throughout six US presidential administrations … US policymakers have bought fully into Russia's vision of itself as the exceptionally and naturally dominant player in the post-Soviet space,' Vindman charges. An embrace of 'realism' as foreign policy touchstone led to turning a blind eye toward Russian aggression, Vindman contends. As a remedy, he calls for a foreign policy predicated upon a 'neo-idealism', a term coined by Benjamin Tallis, director of the Berlin-based Democratic Strategy Initiative. According to Tallis, neo-idealism rests upon 'a morally-based approach to geopolitics, grounded in the power of values conceived as ideals to strive for: human rights and fundamental freedoms, social and cultural liberalism, democratic governance; self-determination for democratic societies; and perhaps most importantly, the right of citizens in those societies to a hopeful future'. That's a mouthful of mush. Vindman, an Iraq war veteran, recipient of a Purple Heart for being wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED), might want to reconsider the potential wide-open commitments that come with neo-idealism, as well as the porousness of the term. On the page and with the benefit of hindsight, he refers to the Iraq war as a 'mistake'. Yet he seems to have a difficult time sticking with that conclusion. 'Because the neocons' heady aims of defeating terrorism globally, while sweeping into the Middle East and establishing democracy by military force, departed so sharply from the tightly restricted, realist-school approach of George HW Bush, those aims did reflect a kind of revived idealism.' Point conceded? He's not finished. 'In pursuing a war on terror, and in letting it drown out almost every other foreign-policy consideration, the neocons committed the US not to a genuinely neo-idealistic policy – tough-minded, clear, demanding of allies and opponents alike – but to an over-the-top mood of using American power to achieve a delusory totality of change, with delusory speed.' Vindman also embraces the vision of one particular senator, from Arizona, who got Putin very right and Iraq very wrong. 'It was John McCain, the Republican candidate, who called for a total change of direction in US policy for Russia and the region,' Vindman writes. Unlike George W Bush, McCain did not claim to have peered into Putin's soul. Unlike Barack Obama, he did not contemplate a reset with Russia. In February 2000, during a Republican debate, McCain captured the essence of Putin. 'We know that he was an apparatchik. We know that he was a member of the KGB. We know that he came to power because of the military brutality … in Chechnya,' McCain said. 'I'm very concerned about Mr Putin.' Elsewhere in that failed presidential bid, though, McCain proclaimed support for 'rogue-state rollback'. Later, he suggested that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and called for Saddam Hussein to be ousted. Vindman omits McCain from his list of those to blame for the Iraq disaster. McCain also offered a misplaced paean to the Libyan revolution: 'I am confident that Libya's journey to democracy will continue to inspire the entire world.' On 11 September 2012, in Benghazi, Islamic militants killed four Americans. McCain never grasped what actually happens after regimes change. To his credit, Vindman acknowledges that events and internal governance within Ukraine added to US doubts about supporting Kyiv. 'Certain factors on the Ukrainian side … helped drive the hedging, half-measure US approach,' Vindman writes. '[A] problem for Ukraine was that despite the success of the [2004 Orange] revolution [against Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow's candidate for president], national identity remained in a state of flux, driven by regional differences. 'Despite the advances promoting Ukrainian language and culture, the east-west divide persisted in Ukrainian elections: the east was seen as pro-Russian, with a strong economic link to Russia, the west as nationalist and pro-Western.' To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, a house divided against itself will tend to wobble, rather. Vindman has made his case. Trump, meanwhile, acts like Tony Soprano with nukes. His deputies castigate Zelenskyy for his wardrobe, for failing to render sufficient respect. Think Silvio Dante or Paulie Walnuts, complaining that a supplicant failed to 'respect the Bing', the strip club owned by their boss. Whether Trump eventually throws Ukraine a lifeline, and whether western Europe can find the will and strength to back Kyiv if he does not, are the questions of our time. The Folly of Realism is published in the US by Hachette
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How Ukraine should deal with Trump, according to Ukrainians
Despite a long history of controversial and bombastic statements, U.S. President Donald Trump still managed to stun those watching this week by calling President Volodymyr Zelesnky a "dictator" and blaming Ukraine for Russia's full-scale invasion. Trump's comments were the latest example of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards Ukraine that has, in recent days, become disturbingly close to long-standing Kremlin propaganda lines. As well as the dictator comment, Trump has also criticized Zelensky for not holding elections, echoing comments from Moscow that have questioned the president's legitimacy. All of this has come at the same time as a concerted push from the White House to end the war, which so far has taken the form of a high-level meeting in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Russian officials — but not Ukraine's, adding to increasing fears that a peace negotiation could be reached that would be beneficial to Moscow at the expense of Kyiv. On the streets of Kyiv on Feb. 19, opinions about Trump and his outbursts over recent days weren't hard to find. "It's complete nonsense. I think he's either an idiot, or he's pretending to be one," Yevhen, a charity fund employee told the Kyiv Independent. While blunt, the comment does highlight an important question — are Trump's personal attacks on Zelensky and Ukraine just that, or is there a wider strategy at play? Benjamin Tallis, director of the Berlin-based Democratic Strategy Initiative, told the Kyiv Independent he believes there are three options. The first, he says, is a strategy all about "putting the Europeans on notice." "Saying, you need to toughen up, you need to take responsibility and to actually make a point in a way that has not been made before by effectively abandoning Europe," he said, adding this possibility is "looking increasingly unlikely" and Trump's cosying up to Putin suggests something else. The second option could be that the Trump administration is looking at the wider geo-political situation, identifies China as its biggest threat, and is therefore trying to "split off Russia from China, to use Russia against China in the ongoing geopolitical competition." "Ukrainians — and Zelensky personally — should absolutely not count on and not trust us now — this American administration is unpredictable, unreliable, and unhinged." "But the thing that mitigates against that is it seems strange on many levels to embrace such an unreliable potential partner as Russia when you have what would be a much more obvious partner and a richer partner in Europe," he says. Which leaves option three — that Trump has "moved over to the side, or embraced his position on the side of the dictators and the anti-freedom axis." "And that's the nightmare scenario because that means that if Europe is in a systemic competition of free world versus the authoritarians of democracies versus dictatorships, we're basically on our own," Tallis said. Read also: Confused about Zelensky's legitimacy? Here's what you need to know Marci Shore, author and professor of European intellectual history at Yale University, gave a similarly downbeat assessment of the situation, bluntly stating that "we're staring into a nihilist abyss." "There are no first principles, no values, nothing beyond narcissism. Trump and Putin are alike in that the lives of other people mean absolutely nothing to them — which gives them both a free hand," she told the Kyiv Independent. "Ukrainians — and Zelensky personally — should absolutely not count on and not trust us now — this American administration is unpredictable, unreliable, and unhinged. This applies both domestically and globally. I say this as an American filled with shame and disgust." We asked three Ukrainian political experts how they think Ukraine should handle this very delicate, and hugely consequential moment.I do not believe that this is some sort of sophisticated strategy here on Trump's part. It is just Trump being Trump. He can't stand anyone opposing him, or standing in his way. Zelensky saying that Trump is wrong, even when he says that in the most reserved, polite way is bad enough for Trump. Only flattery works with him, but this is not a time for flattery if you are Ukraine's leader. Besides, he has a history with Ukraine and Zelensky, and that is a negative history. He is surrounded by people who have no regard for Ukraine. He is getting his view of Ukraine from people who wish it ill. Initially, I suppose, Trump tried to appear fair and balanced. But he has a bad temper and no patience, so his intrinsic thinking came to the surface really quickly. Zelensky is in a hard bind here — he cannot not react to Trump's insinuations. Besides, he needs to position himself clearly with Ukraine's interests in the current situation, in light of a high-speed rapprochement with Moscow. On the other hand, of course, he does not want to antagonize Trump. That is why he appears animated and emotional, but still doing his best to be reserved and calm, not to cross certain lines. It would be wise, I think, for President Zelensky not to dive into this vicious cycle of back-and-forth mocking and poking, trading accusations. Perhaps, not all things Trump says call for a reproach. Read also: Confused about Zelensky's legitimacy? Here's what you need to know Expert on North American policy at the foreign policy think tank Ukrainian Prism When Zelensky and Trump first met in the US… he was very praising of Trump. He was a good friend to him. So basically, Zelensky got it right on how to talk to Trump. And I do believe he should return to the strategy of interpersonal communication, of building bridges with Trump, of being his good buddy. First and foremost, we should once again make it personal, but on the good side of Trump. So to some extent, we should play by Trump's playbook. Of course, some may say it's a lame game to play, but if it provides weapons for Ukraine, if it provides security for Ukraine, and if it provides guarantees and a good deal for Ukraine, I don't care what means we use, we should save our country. The second point is don't look weak. Trump will never deal with somebody who is weak, who is losing, who is getting prepared to lose, or who is just giving up on all positions. It's not about being only nice. It's also about being a strong partner on whom Trump can rely, both economically, politically, security-wise, etc. We should play all our cards well. We should present all our pluses, especially the security and military ones. Ukraine should use all the pluses that Ukraine has and then just work, work, work, constant communication, constant exchanges, and just be there, just be present in Trump's informational bubble. Research advisor at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation If Trump believes Putin is ready to make peace and start negotiations, there is a high probability that because of the Russian approach — they are not flexible and will try to push, push, push — it may create a backlash from the United States, including from Trump himself. And as we know, Trump can always change his mind on matters. Right now he looks very disappointed by Zelensky, and is very aggressive towards him, repeating Russian arguments. But we don't know what will happen in one or two months' time. So he may change his approach, and his approach to Russia may become harder, he may listen more carefully to Ukrainian arguments. It's very difficult to predict, frankly speaking. We can only hope. Read also: Elections in Ukraine — a guide for beginners (and US Presidents) We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
