The isolation of Europe as Trump, Putin cosy up

What is clearly emerging in the tectonic rapprochement between Russia and the United States is not just an arbitrary decision on Ukraine’s fate being thrust on its government and people against their will, but concurrence on a controversial regime change in Kyiv.

The goal is to evict Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, through an early election (admittedly overdue). Zelenskyy’s waning popularity could deteriorate further if he fails to deliver a respectable resolution to the conflict with Russia.

Out to wreck the post-World War II international order, American president, Donald Trump, told reporters, “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law.” He claimed Zelenskyy’s approval rating was “at 4 per cent”. This neatly dovetailed into Russia’s condemnation of the present administration in Ukraine as ‘neo-Nazi’ and its demand for a ‘democratic’ (meaning pro-Moscow) government.

Ukraine was excluded from the talks held in Riyadh on 18 February. Trump argued elections were mandatory for its views to be considered. This seemed to overrule his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who indicated after his four-hour discussion with the Russian delegation headed by foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, that a peace deal would be “acceptable to all the parties engaged”.

Trump also startlingly blamed Ukraine for the Russian invasion, saying, “Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should never have started it. You could have made a deal.”

Not since World War II—and this is no exaggeration—has Europe been confronted with as serious a peril as it’s facing today. Addressing an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris on 17 February, British prime minister, Keir Starmer, aptly said that Europe now faced a “once in a generation moment”.

Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin determining Ukraine’s future is nothing short of an existential crisis for Europe, the kind it hasn’t encountered since the 1940s, when it was at the mercy of Hitler-led Nazi Germany, before the US entered the war.

Europe has thereafter been beholden to the US for the security cover it provides. 100,000 American military personnel are stationed in Europe, not to mention its nuclear weapons being installed on and off shore in the region.

Teams superintended by Lavrov (aided by Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov) and Rubio (assisted by Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz) along with special envoy, Steve Witkoff, explored resetting their bilateral relations (including ‘economic and investment opportunities’) and arriving at a settlement on Ukraine.

At the end of the exercise, Rubio stated that both sides had agreed to “re-establish the (full) functionality” of their diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow, set-up a high-level team to “work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine”, and examine “the geopolitical and economic cooperation that could result from an end to the conflict”. Senior officials who were involved in the opening exchanges would, he added, “remain engaged in the process to make sure that it’s moving along in a productive way”. Zelenskyy reacted by saying that Ukraine will not “give in to Russia’s ultimatums”.

Lavrov called the conversation “very useful. We not only listened, but also heard each other.” He also told US diplomats that Ukraine’s joining NATO (the western military alliance) would pose a ‘direct threat’ to Russian sovereignty. European forces under any other command on Ukrainian soil would not be acceptable to Russia, either.

In Moscow, Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, laid down a precondition for peace—the “annulment of the 2008 Bucharest summit declaration which promised Kyiv eventual membership without a specific timeline’”. Asked to comment on the talks, Ushakov replied in Russian, “Not bad, not bad.”

Germany, Britain and France have not only contributed billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, they have together with other countries absorbed 6.8 million refugees—according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR—since Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory three years ago. Poland is hosting 60 per cent of these displaced people. Germany has accepted one million, Britain more than a quarter of a million.

Until Trump’s return to power, the US under President Joe Biden’s leadership fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Europe to resist Putin’s expansionism. NATO acted in transatlantic unity. Both are in tatters at the altar of Trump’s world view. Europe and Biden-led America envisioned in Putin a Hitler-like menace. Trump has dismissed such a threat.

In Riyadh, Waltz maintained, “This needs to be a permanent end to the war and not a temporary end as we’ve seen in the past.” But for peace in Ukraine and Europe to be durable, Trump has to guarantee the survival of Ukraine, ensure Europe’s defences and not reward Russia’s aggression. Trump’s attempted quick-fix does not recognise any of those.

While a majority of UN General Assembly members have censured Russia for violating and occupying Ukrainian territory, Moscow’s action, based on history, was not entirely unprovoked. When, as a successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia forsook communism, it was given to understand by the West that NATO would not broaden eastward. With its economy in ruins, Russia’s hand was weak and the West exploited this.

Declassified documents in the US National Security Archive establish that on 10 February 1990, German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, assured Gorbachev in Moscow that in lieu of the Soviet Union’s assent to Soviet ally East Germany merging with West Germany, NATO would not expand to the east. The NATO secretary-general repeated this promise in a speech on 17 May of the same year. The formal agreement between the Germans and the Soviets signed in September 1990, though, was restricted to German unification. US president, George Bush Senior, felt Kohl had gone too far.

NATO membership inexorably incorporated former East European communist states in the vicinity of Russia. Boris Yeltsin, who succeeded Gorbachev, was aggrieved; but acquiesced to Poland joining NATO in 1993. In 1997, a NATO-Russia Founding Act created a partnership of sorts. Its wording clarified that Russia had no veto over the alliance’s decisions and NATO retained its right to act independently.

Putin, an erstwhile communist-era KGB operative, felt betrayed. At the 2007 Munich Security Conference (MSC), he accused the West of forgetting and breaking assurances.

Even before dialogue commenced in Riyadh, Trump had verbally conceded Russia’s right to retain the 20–22 per cent of Ukrainian land it had overrun, as well as its demand that Ukraine never becomes a NATO member and does not have US soldiers deployed on its territory. Putin, meanwhile, had skilfully softened up Trump with a timely release of Americans prisoners in Russia.

Zelenskyy told the MSC last week he would “never accept deals behind our backs without our involvement”. But can he continue the fight with only European support? UK prime minister Starmer is slated to meet Trump in Washington next week to not only consolidate UK-US ties, but act as a bridge between Europe and the US. Trump however wants no truck with the European Union, which—with its own currency and a 500-million market— he sees as competition.

Trump has brought Putin out of the cold. Sweeping cuts in nuclear arsenals will be a positive, but this would be reciprocal, not a one-way concession by Russia. Given Russia's economic circumstance—with 40 per cent of GDP being spent on defence—Putin has little to offer, other than a promise to buy American goods and services and provide market access for US companies. Both would mean the lifting of US sanctions on Russia, which would suit Putin.

A restoration of the G7 to G8, with the Russians re-entering this elite group, already mooted by Trump, will be icing on the cake for the Kremlin, only with Europe’s opinion being accommodated.

Europe had mistakenly assessed that Trump would not fully roll out his campaign rhetoric. Now, it has no choice other than to be self-reliant and allocate significant sums of money for its own defence.

(Ashis Ray can be found on X @ashiscray)