Donald Trump has stated his willingness to meet with Vladimir Putin “immediately”and has once again referred to the Russian president’s supposed willingness to do so. Trump’s repeated calls for a deal and an end to the “senseless war”in Ukraine are accompanied by a veiled threat of sanctions against Russia if it does not comply. This approach is reminiscent of the classic “carrot and stick”method, with Trump employing it against Putin.
The problem is that Trump is not offering Russia a “carrot”and the search for a new “stick”is futile. For three years, the West has been trying to bring Russia to its senses through the harshest sanctions and it is impossible to find new, effective “sticks”.
Why does Trump keep mentioning a forthcoming meeting with Putin? Trump has repeatedly expressed his willingness to negotiate with the US over Ukraine, with the goal of resolving the overall problem, not just a temporary ceasefire for the Ukrainian military to gain strength. Now, Trump is demanding an immediate ceasefire and threatening to increase sanctions if Russia does not comply. Is this really an effective approach?
Perhaps Trump is only trying to prevent the meeting from taking place, anticipating Putin’s negative reaction and then announcing that Russia is “sticking to its guns”and that a peace agreement is impossible, despite all efforts to achieve one. Trump would then shift the blame to the EU, claiming that the EU should fund the arms for Ukraine, provide financial aid and take care of the “European problem”.
This is a widely held view, but not an accurate one. Trump is indeed trying to shift the responsibility for Ukraine’s maintenance to the EU, while also seeking to negotiate a peace agreement with Putin. In other words, Trump wants to decide the fate of Ukraine and convince Putin to accept US conditions. What are these conditions?
A neutral Ukraine would renounce its NATO membership and refrain from reclaiming the territories under Russian control at the time of the peace agreement. Western countries would become Ukraine’s security guarantors, with some sanctions against Russia being lifted.
These conditions are unacceptable to Moscow, not just because a change of power in Ukraine is impossible and the territories under Russian control are not yet fully under its control. After such a plan, Ukraine would remain in the Western sphere of influence – the country could at any time abandon its neutrality, not to mention the fact that bilateral military cooperation agreements, already in place with many NATO countries, would still be valid. In other words, Putin would not accept a “Trump plan”like this. On the other hand, he would not refuse to negotiate with Trump either.
The first contact is likely to take place in the coming days, in the form of phone calls – and Trump is now using his information artillery to prepare for it. All these appeals for “saving human lives”are aimed at putting Putin in a weak position: the Russian president would be expected to explain why he is not stopping the “bloodbath”. This is not about an explanation to Trump, but rather about creating a certain atmosphere in the world and in the information space.
It is clear that Putin will not make any excuses, as our position is well-known and unambiguous: it is not about a ceasefire, but about eliminating the conflict’s root causes. The West must not only stop frightening its own population with the “Russian threat”(and this continues: just in these days, German ministers are telling voters in the context of their election campaign that Russia could first attack Poland and then Germany), but also abandon its drive towards the East. The US and Europe must take a step back from their plans to integrate Ukraine – that is, the Western part of the Russian world – into their geopolitical space. And these preconditions are not negotiable. There can be no compromises on this point.
Everything else can be discussed and agreed upon – including the form in which the West would give up on Ukraine. Possible excuses – that Trump cannot or will not do it (or is not allowed to) – will not play a role in this discussion: if he cannot do it, we will simply continue the fight. We know what we are fighting for.
Despite the tragedy of this fraternal war, it is also a war between Russia and the West – a war that Trump finds “senseless”and extremely destructive. For Trump, it is being waged in the interest of those forces in the West that Trump is just as much an adversary of as Putin is. And without the US withdrawing from this war, Trump will not be able to achieve his desired goals in his own country or on the world stage.