White House talks more important than US-Russia summit in Alaska-
It is quite possible that Monday’s meeting in the White House could prove even more crucial to the future of Ukraine – and for all of Europe’s security – than last Friday’s US-Russia summit in Alaska.
On the surface, that Putin-Trump reunion seemed to live down to every expectation.
There was no ceasefire, no sanctions, no grand announcements.
Were Ukraine and Europe about to get cut out of a deal cooked up behind closed doors by the world’s two foremost nuclear powers?
Not, apparently, if Ukraine and its partners can prevent it.For so many heads of state to travel with such little notice across the Atlantic to what is essentially a wartime crisis meeting appears without precedent in the modern era, underscoring the sky-high stakes.
Diplomatic sources say European officials are concerned that Trump may try to press Zelensky to agree to terms, after the Ukrainian leader was excluded from the Trump-Putin meeting on US soil last Friday.
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the BBC’s US partner CBS that any suggestion Zelensky might be bullied by Trump into accepting a peace deal was a “stupid media narrative”.
This is where the Sir Keir Starmer’s diplomatic skills will be sorely tested.
Trump likes Starmer and listens to him, and in a month’s time Trump will be coming to the UK on a state visit.
He also likes Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary-General who will be in attendance, a man who is sometimes called ‘the Trump Whisperer’.
The US President appears to be less fond of President Macron and the White House was sharply critical recently of his intention to unconditionally recognise a Palestinian state at the next UN General Assembly.
For a peace deal in Ukraine to have any chance of working, something has to give.
European leaders have said frequently that international borders cannot be changed by force and President Zelensky has said time and time again he will not give up land and besides, Ukraine’s constitution forbids it.
But Putin wants the Donbas, which his forces already control around 85 per cent of, and he has absolutely no intention of ever handing back Crimea.
Yet as the former Estonian PM and now Europe’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas once said to me: victory for Ukraine in this war does not have to be exclusively about reconquering occupied land.
If Ukraine can obtain the sort of Article 5-type security guarantees now being talked about, sufficient to deter any future Russian aggression and thereby safeguard its independence as a free and sovereign state, then that would be a form of victory.
The challenge for Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his talks with Donald Trump at the White House is to avoid a repeat of the disastrous encounter the last time they met there.
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When Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies meet Donald Trump in Washington, a huge amount is at stake.
Ukrainian officials are reported to feel betrayed by the US president, who appears to have shifted position to side with Vladimir Putin on a number of key points in the wake of the meeting with him in Alaska.
Trump has undermined the unity of the Western alliance by abandoning their calls for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s last meeting with Donald Trump at the White House ended in disaster. Pic: AP/ Mystyslav Chernov
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s last meeting with Donald Trump at the White House ended in disaster. Pic: AP/ Mystyslav Chernov
He is no longer threatening more severe sanctions, and more worryingly still he seems open to the idea of making the Ukrainians hand over territory the Russians have not yet captured.
He and his real estate lawyer turned rookie negotiator Steve Witkoff seem to believe the conflict can be resolved by an exchange of territory. Putin on the other hand has made it clear he is fighting to extinguish Ukraine as an independent and democratic entity.