Ending the Russia-Ukraine Conflict Trump's Way

"There is not any leader in the world who can really make a deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin without us, about us."

"He's a liar. He doesn't want any peace."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

"We'll be having meetings at the direction of the president [Donald Trump], and hopefully we'll make some really good progress with regard to Russia-Ukraine."

"I think Ukraine is part of the talks. I don't think this is about excluding anybody."

U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff 

"[Putin] wants to stop fighting. We each talked about the strengths of our respective nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together."

"I'd love to have them back [in the G8]. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. They should be sitting at the table. I think Putin would love to be back."

"I think he wants to end it and they want to end it fast."

"Zelenskyy wants to end it, too."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

President Donald Trump leaves after speaking during the signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.  Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

 

American officials and their Russian counterparts arranged to meet in Saudi Arabia for direct negotiations to begin, over ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Kyiv and its allies throughout Europe were left to swiftly arrive at a strategy for their own security. Which led France to call an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris. Their first encounter with the Trump team at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend left them reeling in disbelief and confusion when senior U.S. officials including Vice-President J.D. Vance gave up mixed signals on support for Kyiv and relieved them of the expectation that Kyiv and Europe would be present for negotiations on Ukraine's future.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was somewhat less than pleased, responding that Kyiv would never view a deal arrived at without his presence as acceptable, and rejected an American proposal to access Ukraine's rare earth minerals which offered in return no security guarantees. In Abu Dhabi on the weekend, President Zelenskyy signed a trade deal with the UAE, meeting Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to "maximally liberalize access to the UAE market for almost all Ukrainian goods".

 

Sheikh Mohammed spoke of "the UAE's keenness to support everything that would lead to a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and continue working to mitigate its humanitarian repercussions." Contrast that with the White House expressing its interest in backing President Zelenskyy's bid to take possession of the US$300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in European banks, as long as Ukraine spends the money on U.S. military hardware.

 

To place matters in further perspective, contrary to Mr. Trump's claims, the U.S. has not been the primary financial contributor to Ukraine's pushback against Moscow. Over the past three years, Europe has contributed 132.3 billion euros ($197 billion,) pledging an open-ended commitment to continue for as long as it may take. As for the U.S. contribution, it totalled $114.2 euros with most of that funding remaining in the United States, representing purchases from U.S. arms manufacturers. 

 

US, Russia agree to try to end war without Ukraine at the table High-level delegations from the U.S. and Russia held talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday over the fate of Ukraine, the negotiations taking place without Kyiv's participation.    Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via AP

 

President Trump concurred with the Kremlin that Ukrainians should not have been encouraged to approach NATO for membership, that the resulting conflict was entirely Ukraine's fault, along with that of Joe Biden's offence to Russia's anti-NATO 'red line' sensitivities regarding Ukraine, which has never been a proper country with a history and culture of its very own, claimed by Vladimir Putin. And of course, the one-sixth of Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia will remain with Russia...

 

Leaving Ukrainians in an agony of anxiety over what else Trump might conceivably defer to Putin on, to Ukraine's detriment, in his quest to win accolades for ending the war, as he proposed during his presidential election campaign. And nor does he apparently feel that Russia should be responsible for war reparations after levelling Ukrainian cities, causing the death of up to 57,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, with over 250,000 having been injured. 

According to President Trump, European troops should be prepared to police U.S. "security guarantees" in Ukraine, at Ukraine's expense. He proposed making it simpler for Ukraine to earn the required funding for that initiative with "the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earths". Vice-President Vance did his part in destabilizing/astonishing European leaders over their harbouring of misguided fears relating to Russia and China. "What I worry about is the threat from within -- the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America."

 

Beyond astonishing... 

Trump falsely claims Ukraine started war with Russia CNN still from video