Not only Ukraine, but also European leaders must give a quick answer to Donald Trump’s peace proposal.
What are the peace conditions offered by the US according to a secret document now in essence published by the WSJ?
– No NATO
– Recognition of Crimea as Russian
– Russia can stay in the occupied territories but without legal right to control
– No comments on foreign troops, continued military support
– No Ukrainian demilitarization
– Special US control on the Saporizhia nuclear power plant
It is now up to Ukraine to answer to this peace offer suggested by Donald Trump. Europa must follow.
The overall matter is as follows:
The Obama/Biden Administrations have pushed for NATO enlargement to Russia’s borders and provoked a war in Ukraine which Donald Trump wants to end (“It’s Biden’s War”).
Donald Trump is not and cannot be an honest broker between the parties, as Ukraine admittedly is the proxy of the US in Biden’s War against Russia. Trump’s problem today is that he cannot easily force Ukraine to accept a peace deal because some European leaders are opposing to it and the Ukrainian leadership is hoping for a better outcome and gambling on European support.
The risk is that the US may be substituted by Europe, the Europeans to continue the proxy war against Russia, or worse, to get directly involved in a war with Russia.
Trump want to stop all this and is pushing and negotiating on all sides. On the one side Trump is negotiating with Russia, trying to normalize relationships with Moscow, on the other side Trump is negotiating with European leaders and the Kiev regime to get them to accept Trump’s peace. Indeed, Trump’s peace is strongly taking into consideration Russia’s demands.
Europe has built up a confrontational stance against Trump. Those European left-over leaders from the Biden/Obama era (eg. France’s Macron) are actively working against Trump. New European leaders are either ideologically opposed to Trump (UK’s Starmer) or have not yet taken a final position in between the sides (Germany’s Merz). Some smaller European countries are on Trump’s side (Hungary, Slovakia, even Italy).
It is a really complicated matter for Trump to find a solution within the jungle of the European cacophony – and Trump seems having said that the US will “give a pass on it” if no agreement is found in shortest time.
Trump’s Easter peace suggestion was answered by President Putin with a Russian unilateral Easter ceasefire. A show of Russian willingness to make peace, but also a show of force that Russia has the say on Ukraine and can decide unilaterally if, when and how it employs its military might.
Therefore, Trump needs to find the solution in this almost impossible mathematical enigma to unify all constraints, European, Ukrainian, Russian and those of the US.
As Trump is signaling strongly his intention to walk away from the Ukrainian conflict, he may consider it the easiest approach by taking the US out of the equation, which will provoke a major and fast collapse in Ukraine with direct negative consequences for Europe and the risk of a dangerous situation even with an impact on the US.
The other, more likely solution is to sacrifice Ukriane and accept the most of Russia’s demands – leaving to the Europeans the duty to clean up the remaining mess. This is equivalent to a surrender, but a realistic approach to ending a war that cannot be won against Russia. Trump admitted many times that Biden’s War was a mistake, that it should never have started and members of his Administration confirmed that this war cannot be won. The hopes that the Ukrainian conflict and the economic sanctions would destabilize Russia to the extent of a regime change in Moscow were completely unrealistic.
Trump will most likely increase pressure on Ukraine and Europe to force their acceptance of Trump’s peace plan. The conditions of Trump’s peace plan are good enough for Russia to enter into reasonable negotiations with Trump and eventually allow for a further, full or partial ceasefire. As Trump said “Russia has all the cards in their hands” it is only up to Russia that the war stops now and that a final and durable peace can be realized.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
