The only real unknown is whether Europe – or rather, which Europe – will have the strength, the resilience, the foresight and the courage to continue to support Kiev, not only against Moscow but also against Washington, aware that European security now passes through a free Ukraine.
By Nathalie TOCCI
We are not yet on the verge of a real and lasting ceasefire in Ukraine. Maybe it will come; maybe in a few months, who knows. But for now, as in the past three years, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is still far from achieving his goals of controlling the annexed Regions militarily and the entire country politically, has no intention of stopping the invasion. And that is even more true now, as Putin is perhaps convinced that he already has US President Donald Trump in his pocket. But ending the war in Ukraine does not seem to be, for the moment, in the Kremlin’s plans.
Putin has rejected the proposal agreed between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump for a complete 30-day ceasefire.
In his last phone call with his American counterpart, the Russian president made a small promise, agreeing to stop attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. But just hours after the call ended, he launched a massive drone and missile attack on a power plant that supplies Ukrainian railways and two hospitals. It’s clear that Putin thinks he can not only ignore Trump, but also humiliate him, so convinced is he that he has him under control. To date, the American president has given no sign that he would challenge this interpretation. Why? This is difficult to decipher. Without falling into conspiracy theories, we can assume that the reason Trump is so manipulable is a mixture of ignorance of the issues at hand, impatience with detail, and a boundless ego that would hardly accept a blow to his narcissistic self-image as a “great peacemaker.”
On the other hand, Putin is not the only one playing this macabre game. Not only is there no end to the war in the Middle East, as many hoped and as he himself propagandized, but now Trump has given Benjamin Netanyahu the green light to resume bombing Gaza, killing over 400 Palestinian civilians in a single day.
He has also escalated the crisis in the Red Sea and brought the scenario of a direct clash with Iran closer. And say if you want that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, what can we expect from the war in Ukraine? The Kremlin’s strategy seems quite clear. By dragging out the negotiations, Russia is pursuing three main objectives.
First, to use negotiations as a cover to continue the war.
Second, to reach an agreement with Washington that is not directly related to the war in Ukraine. If Putin wants to continue the war, convinced that he can win it, he knows that he can do so only if Western countries give his economy a breather. Only in this way does he think he can secure more than the 7-8% of Ukrainian territory (in addition to the 14% occupied in 2014), which he has managed to take over during the three years of war at a staggering human and economic cost.
Although sanctions are not a sufficient reason to make Moscow withdraw, their lifting would be the necessary condition for allowing the occupation to continue “sine die” (indefinitely). This second objective implies that Putin manages to shift the blame to Kiev, a goal that seems easy to achieve given Trump’s total support for Moscow. This is related to the third objective, which aims to consolidate the transatlantic rift through the US president himself. Putin has often repeated that a ceasefire in Ukraine would require a halt to military support for Kiev. This is the necessary condition for Putin to agree to lay down his arms – for a while. This would allow him to continue military mobilization in Russia, to then resume the war, in Ukraine and/or elsewhere, when Ukraine is demilitarized and abandoned, and Russian forces have regenerated.
It is plausible to imagine that Trump, having placed the blame on Kiev, will accept this condition, sooner or later.
It is equally possible that the American president, through Putin, will pressure the Europeans to do the same. The propaganda would then present Putin and Trump as the two peace negotiators, while a warmongering Europe as the obstacle to peace. Who knows, perhaps Trump could threaten Europe into submitting to Moscow’s wishes, through trade tariffs or a partial military withdrawal from the European continent. But Putin’s scenario has one big problem: Ukraine and Europe. The only real unknown is whether Europe – or rather, which Europe – will have the strength, resilience, foresight and courage to continue to support Kiev, not only against Moscow but also against Washington, knowing that European security now passes through a free Ukraine.
