The White House has announced that Trump and Putin will hold peace talks in Alaska on Friday.
This just goes to show how lackadaisical I am in following world events. I didn’t even know that the US and Russia were at war, nor that the hostilities are about to end.
If they are, I’m glad: no one likes to see two nuclear powers go at each other hammer and tongs. One wrong move and the whole world goes kaboom, or so we’ve been told…
Hold on a moment. Penelope has this annoying habit of looking over my shoulder, and she tells me I’ve misread the whole situation. Apparently, there has been no war between the US and Russia, which means no peace treaty is necessary.
That is, between those two countries at any rate. America isn’t currently involved in any conflict, but fair enough: Russia is indeed waging a brutal war of aggression against the Ukraine. Hence the peace the two presidents will be discussing is supposed to end the war between those two countries, with America looking on from the outside.
Now I’m really confused. If America isn’t fighting Russia but the Ukraine is, then surely any peace talks should be held between the two belligerents? A third party, such as the US, may act as the mediator, but that’s strictly optional. The sine qua non of any peace treaty is that it must be concluded between the warring parties, isn’t it?
Enough of this buffoonery. I resorted to it only to make a gravely serious point: Trump and Putin are ganging up on the Ukraine. This regardless of what kind of agreement, if any, they concoct in Alaska. The very fact that the meeting is bilateral and not trilateral proves that neither president regards the Ukraine as a sovereign state.
Putin’s view on this matter is no secret: like all totalitarian leaders, the Russian chieftain is quite open about his monstrous ideas.
The official Kremlin position is that the Ukraine is a province of Russia and, as such, can only have as much sovereignty as Russia allows. In 2014, the Ukraine brazenly went over her allowance, which set in train a series of punitive acts culminating in Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022.
Trump hasn’t been quite so forthright on the issue – decorum demands that US presidents express themselves equivocally and, if at all possible, within diplomatic protocol. But, as the cliché goes, actions speak louder than words.
By cutting the Ukraine out of the talks in which her national sovereignty and territorial integrity are to be decided (or even discussed), Trump implicitly accepts Putin’s assessment of that heroic country. The Ukraine is the naughty boy sent out of the room not to interfere with a serious talk between the grown-ups.
Trump’s statement on the forthcoming event bespeaks wishful thinking at best, most refreshing ignorance at worst. “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelensky wants to see peace.” Trump said. “In all fairness to President Zelensky, he’s getting everything he needs to, assuming we get something done.”
The talk surrounding the meeting speculates that the grown-ups will agree to trade some of the naughty boy’s territory for a ceasefire. However, saying that Putin wants to see peace and would therefore be happy with such terms is naïve bordering on moronic.
Putin didn’t start this war because he wants more land. Russia already has more than she knows what to do with, and she is de facto ceding to China greater areas, in the Far East, than all of the Ukraine.
Nor does Russia need Ukrainian natural resources. Putin already has the entire periodic table sloshing underfoot everywhere he takes a step in Russia. What Putin wants is to rebuild the Russian Empire to its former wicked grandeur, an unachievable task if even a rump Ukraine keeps her independence.
Putin doesn’t want peace, Mr Trump. He wants victory – over the Ukraine first, Eastern Europe second, the West in general third. Hence no cessation of hostilities Putin will ever accept will amount to genuine peace if it doesn’t include the Ukraine’s capitulation. Otherwise, it can only ever be a short pause.
If Trump doesn’t understand this, he is ignorant and stupid. If, as is more likely, he understands it and still carries on as if he didn’t, he’s immoral and perfidious.
If I read the US president correctly, he wants that whole mess out of his dyed hair. He thinks he can bully Zelensky into some sort of phony peace, collect his Nobel Peace Prize and wash his hands of the whole affair.
He’ll then remove all sanctions on Russia, cut all sorts of ‘deals’ with Putin helping him rebuild Russia’s economy, and watch with avuncular insouciance as Russia rearms, regroups and gets ready to pounce again. As long as Putin can wait until 2029, whatever happens thereafter won’t be Trump’s problem.
Nor is Zelensky “getting everything he needs to”. He understands, even if Trump doesn’t, that ceding 20 per cent of the Ukraine’s territory to Putin will only mean a short delay before Russia gobbles up the rest. What Zelensky needs is Russia withdrawing to the 1991 borders and staying there for ever behind the wall of international peace guarantees.
But he isn’t going to get that, is he? What he’ll get is Trump twisting one of his arms, and Putin the other. Quite possibly, the disgusting scene in the Oval Office will be re-enacted, with a slightly different cast, featuring Putin instead of Vance.
That’s provided a trilateral meeting ever takes place, which isn’t a foregone conclusion. A more likely scenario is Trump and Putin putting on dove plumage and announcing urbi et orbi that they’ve agreed peace terms, of a kind that would be unacceptable to the Ukraine.
If Zelensky then rejects the ‘deal’, Trump will declare him the warmonger, the Ukraine a pariah state, and Russia a peace-loving country that must have all sanctions against her summarily removed.
Then off to Stockholm to collect his gong and read an “I’d like to thank…” speech off the teleprompter. Job done – Trump will go down in history as a blessed peacemaker; the Ukraine will go down, full stop; and Putin will go down as another Ivan III, the 16th century grand duke known as ‘the gatherer of the Russian lands’.
Another possible scenario is that Trump and Putin decide, and Zelensky agrees, to halt temporarily the aerial bombardment of each other’s territory. In exchange, Trump may lift most sanctions on Russia and all the secondary tariffs on her trading partners.
That wouldn’t be a fair exchange either because, while the Ukraine hits only Russian military and strategic targets, the Russians attack Ukrainian cities, murdering civilians in the hope of breaking the nation’s morale. Any pause in that criminal activity would save some lives, which is good news, but only from the humanitarian standpoint.
By contrast, a pause in Ukrainian drone attacks of Russian troops, infrastructure, communications, oil refineries and munitions factories would allow the Russians to catch their strategic breath, beef up their AA defences and then come back in force.
Hence even this palliative measure would hurt the Ukraine and benefit Russia – while also probably sending Trump on the road to Stockholm. Any way you look at it, the announced chinwag will either be useless, if an agreement isn’t reached, or detrimental to the Ukraine, if it is.
One just hopes the Russians won’t demand the return of Alaska, which they sold to the US in 1867 for today’s equivalent of a derisory $130 million. At least, if that happens, Trump will be in his comfort zone of a property developer haggling about a piece of land.
Trump, and the whole American electoral system are a suppurating disaster, against which there are neither antibiotics nor antiseptics. Ours is not much better.
The future is very cloudy, indeed!