Trump has fully embraced Russia’s war fantasy, but there’s a hidden trap for Putin

The announcement that the United States is to suspend all military aid to Ukraine has turned support for Kyiv from an urgent problem for Europe into an immediate one. It’s a vital test for the continent’s decision-makers, and the cost of failing it could be catastrophic. There have been signs that Europe’s leaders have, belatedly, grasped the urgency. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen chose the moment to present a long-overdue “Rearm Europe” plan.

But that comes on top of efforts already underway to find an end to the conflict and preserve Ukraine as a viable state. Sunday’s summit of Western countries backing Kyiv made all the right noises about stepping in to make a peace settlement work. But the four-point plan announced by Keir Starmer leaves a lot of questions unanswered – not least, how it is going to work without cooperation from Russia or the United States.

Unlike Trump’s administration, European leaders are taking a reality-based approach to any possible ceasefire: that past performance indicates Russia will breach it at the first opportunity. That’s what makes it so clear that the description of any foreign military presence in Ukraine as “peacekeepers” is dangerously misleading. Far from the popular idea of peacekeepers as a lightly armed police mission, if European forces are to be deployed to Ukraine, they need to be fully capable of defending themselves when Russia restarts the war.

But that’s also why Starmer has repeatedly stated that no peace plan will work without the US underwriting it. He has done so despite the US repeatedly stating that it is not willing to do so. It’s not yet clear how that gap is supposed to be bridged.

There’s also a clear logical issue when it comes to discussing whether Russia might agree to a plan including foreign forces in Ukraine. The foreign forces will be there with the aim of preventing Russia from restarting the war.

That’s not an outcome Russia wants to see. So, the suggestion that Russia might agree to a peace enforcement force plan involving European forces is baffling. We can expect a full-blown Russian campaign of bluster and nuclear flouncing if any such plan were to get any way close to being implemented in real life. And, given the consistent track record of the Trump clique in endorsing and attempting to enforce Putin’s preferred outcomes to the war, Russian objections to a European plan would be very likely to be supported by the US.

So it’s an open question for now exactly how European leaders hope to push through a plan that appears to depend on preconditions that simply aren’t on the table. And all of this is supposed to happen at the same time as European powers are implementing promised increases in equipment supplies to Ukraine and defence spending at home.

Air defence is likely to be one of the most immediate vital gaps to fill now the US has withdrawn its support. New long-term production arrangements both to boost Ukraine and to protect European countries are vital, but so is whatever can be deployed to Ukraine immediately. And for Europe as a whole, any plan that considers war with Russia as a future problem, not one of today, is already dangerously out of date.

open image in gallery

It’s important to remember that for all the talk of “peace negotiations”, these have not actually started – which hasn’t stopped the United States from pre-emptively indicating that it will acquiesce to many of Russia’s demands. Repeated confirmation that the US administration has fully embraced Russia’s fantasy version of the war means the Kremlin must be running out of champagne by now. The question for Moscow will be what to push for next, while treading carefully in order to keep Trump and those around him tame and on side. On the grounds that you shouldn’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake, Putin should be careful not to send things off track by disrupting Trump’s “peace” initiative.

Russia will want to pocket its wins and formalise the concessions the United States have already offered unprompted. It’s after that that the Kremlin will demand more. We should expect a refresh of Russia’s December 2021 “treaty proposals” formalising a US withdrawal from Europe, and reordering the continent to leave Russia the dominant player in its east.

For the time being, Trump and vice-president JD Vance are doing all the hard work for Russia. Trump’s scuppering of his own mineral “deal” after taking offence at Zelensky injecting reality into the conversation now allows him to endorse the Russian claim that it is Zelensky who does not want peace. But there’s a world of difference between a brief, symbolic ceasefire that Trump can claim as a victory and the lasting peace settlement that European leaders – and Zelensky himself – have set as their goal.

open image in gallery

Starmer says the US’s centrality to European security makes discussion of doing without it “totally unserious”. But he will know as well as any other Nato leader that Trump could make the prospect deadly serious at any moment.

Both the EU and Nato may at present be holding their breath – avoiding taking decisive action while waiting to see if Trump will pull the rug from under them as well as Ukraine. But Europe and Canada need both to work to keep Trump on side and to prepare urgently for the fallout if these efforts are unsuccessful.

Military equipment specialists and logisticians will be busily working out not only how capable Ukrainian forces will be of operating without US support, but also any other armed force across Europe that has been organised and equipped on the perfectly reasonable assumption that the United States would be on the same side. For all the efforts to maintain US cooperation, all of these forces must now be making contingency plans to go with what they’ve got – with or without US support because the option may not be there.

All of this assumes that an agreed plan for Europe to ensure peace for Ukraine – and for Europe – will eventually take shape. The UK’s reference to “various options on the table” on Monday made it clear there was no firm agreement on the next steps.

The coalition of the least unwilling may have come together. The real test will come when it starts to act rather than talk.

Keir Giles is the author of ‘Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent’