KYIV BLOG: Ukraine’s worst nightmare becomes real
It’s everything we feared Trump would mean. He held his first Cabinet meeting yesterday and plainly said that the US is out of the Ukraine conflict and it's up to Europe to support and protect Ukraine going forward if it wants to.
What is even more galling is that not only will the US give Ukraine minimal help from here on, Trump is also clearly proposing to go into business with Russia and at least tap its vast mineral resources just to make money.
The US is “open to a minerals deal with Russia” after a peace deal is signed, Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump's envoy to the Middle East, confirmed in an interview with Fox News on February 27.
"I think there will be plenty of opportunities for the United States with Russia when this peace deal gets finished," Witkoff said, and that there will "be plenty of economic cooperation opportunities" between the US and Russia once the war ends.
Earlier this week Trump also said out loud that he is interested in tapping Russia’s massive reserves of rare earth and critical minerals. "I'd like to buy minerals on Russian land too if we can," Trump said. "The rare earth, they have very good rare earth ... It's great for Russia too, because we could do deals there." Unlike Ukraine which doesn’t have any rare earth metal reserves, Russia actually has rare earth mineral reserves of 10mn tonnes, the fourth largest in the world, according to the US Geological Surbey (USGS).
RDIF boss Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s deal-maker-in-chief, admitted yesterday that at the Riyadh talks a “parallel track” was set up to “talk business” that he is leading. There is clearly a lot going on behind the scenes we are not privy to.
What is so shocking is how completely Trump seems to have abandoned any vestiges of sticking to the Western “values-based” principles and appears to have no scruples whatsoever about going into business with Putin. There isn’t even any window dressing. The minerals deal is a prime example: the first version was “worse than Versailles” so they sent a second version that was even tougher. Some realists must have been at work at State to tone down a third version to get it through. Hat tip to Zelenskiy for doing a tough deal, bad as the final version is.
The rest of Europe has been left scrambling as they still believe in the values and are locked into supporting them, but that leaves them with no negotiating room as Trump will simply say “no” to most of what they are asking for.
So what did Trump say?
“Ukraine can forget about Nato,” said Trump. So all that rhetoric about an “irreversible path” of the last three years was simply hot air. I never believed it in the first place – how do you get passed Hungary’s veto? – but now Trump has said it out loud.
“I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much,” he said. “We’re going to have Europe do that, because Europe is the next door neighbour.”
This is another key element in making any ceasefire deal work. It was at the core of the failed 2022 Istanbul deal, which the US is now proposing to use as the basis of a deal with Russia – mirroring Russian President Vladimir Putin's insistence on the same.
There can be no lasting peace in Ukraine unless it gets some sort of security guarantee. All that will happen is Russia will have a pause, can rebuild its military stocks and re-invade anytime it feels like it. If there are no security guarantees then Russia gets to literally hold a gun to Kyiv’s head in any future discussions.
In lieu of security guarantees, Trump’s plan is to sign off on the minerals deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who will be in Washington tomorrow and “that will do,” because no one would dare mess with the US if they are working in Ukraine, right? "We are going to be working over there. We'll be on the land. And you know, in that way, it's sort of automatic security because nobody is going to be messing around with our people when we're there. And so, we'll be there in that way," Trump explained.
He seems to have a naïve trust in Putin and even admiration of his strong-man image that means he will gamble Ukraine’s fate on the basis of his own personal impressions and that Putin’s word not to restart the war is good enough.
"I’ve known him [Putin] for a long time now and I don't believe he's going to violate his word … When we make the deal, I think the deal's going to hold," Trump said.
This is classic US arrogance. Those inside the Beltway have this unquestionable confidence in its military might and assume that it can defeat anyone at any time. But this has been brought into question by its defeat in Afghanistan, where the might of the US military machine was unable to subdue a bunch of guys running about in the mountains using little more than Kalashnikovs and RPGs. Likewise in Iraq. Likewise in Libya. Yes the US military is powerful and better armed than anyone else, but there are limits to what it can do. And remember we are talking about the US going to war with not only Russia, but probably China too as well as chunks of the Middle East in a three-theatre war. It’s not tinpot dictators like Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Saddam Hussein and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi it would be taking on, but Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which I suggest to you is an all-together more daunting prospect.
US backing for European peacekeepers is not going to happen either, as we argued elsewhere. French President Emmanuel Macron was in Washington this week and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is there now, both to ask for a US “backstop” to their plan to deploy 30,000 Western peacekeepers in Ukraine post-war. Trump is not going to do it.
It's unworkable anyway. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and others keep repeating that the Kremlin won’t accept any Western troops on the ground in Ukraine in any form, for obvious reasons. The whole point of starting this war in the first place was to prevent exactly this. And no one is talking about getting a UN mandate for peacekeepers, which is probably the only way it could be worked. But of course Russia will veto any motion in the UNSC.
Zelenskiy is due in Washington tomorrow and said last night he has a long list of blunt questions for Trump: Nato? More money? Security deal of any sort? Can we still buy your weapons? He will get a no to all of them except buying weapons – if you pay cash. That’s business of course, so that is allowed.
As far as I'm concerned the campaign to support Ukraine is over. There is nowhere to go from here. Europe doesn’t have the money or the military to support Ukraine on its own. The talk of peacekeepers is a gesture, as it solves nothing other sating the #somethingmustbedone trope.
The trans-Atlantic relation is dead, or dying. Nato is dead or dying. Do you think if Russia invaded and captured the Baltics – which military analysts say would only take five days vs Nato’s response time of at least two weeks – Trump is going to take the US to war against Russia over the fate of the 1.2mn Estonians? There is an arrogance in Europe too that Russia would never attack the EU as it is home to some of the richest countries in the world. I saw the ex-head of MI6 in an interview arguing that “of course we could mount a military defence that Russia would not be able to answer. True. But the key question is: how quickly? The Draghi report highlighted what a sorry state the EU defence sector is in and despite three years of war in its backyard, Europe has only just started to invest into defence, but it’s far too little, too late. Some military analysts say that Europe currently can’t defeat Russia on its own, without US help.
Where does that leave Zelenskiy? I think his only option now is to return Ukraine to neutrality and build up “our own Nato” – i.e. increase the size of the standing army to at least 1.5mn and continue to invest heavily into the defence sector. Basically, a Finlandisation of Ukraine.
That actually worked pretty well for Finland, which today has one of the best and well-equipped armies in Europe and has been left alone by Russia for the last 70 years. It also lost 10% of its territory to Russia, which it never got back, but the country flourished and while it was neutral, the Soviet Union was happy to leave it alone.
Trump is in a rush to get this deal done. He admitted yesterday that he got “a little testy” when Zelenskiy refused to sign off on the first two versions of the minerals deal and ended up in a war of words with the Ukrainian leader, calling him a “dictator”. But now the deal is about to be signed Trump has calmed down and called Zelenskiy the “best president” in an interview on February 27. However, the whole episode goes to show how impatient and impulsive Trump can be.
Ukraine has a limited opportunity to get the deal done. A peace deal to end Russia's war against Ukraine will happen "quickly" or not at all, Trump said yesterday during a joint press conference with UK Prime Minister Starmer.
"If it doesn't happen quickly, it may not happen at all," he said.
Zelenskiy wants peace with guarantees. What he is going to get is peace without guarantees. But for me as long as he gets peace at this point that is a good result. Too many people have died already and Ukraine has been largely destroyed as a country. It’s time to stop this war and if Trump won’t play along, there is little we can do about that.
Trust in Zelenskiy jumps to 65% following Trump’s comments, but still trails General Zaluzhnyi
Public trust in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has jumped to 65%, up from 57% in January, after US President Donald Trump claimed that his popularity was only 4% and called him a “dictator” without legitimacy in a war of words that broke out last week.
Trump’s verbal assault has triggered an outpouring of support for Ukraine’s heroic wartime leader, however, Zelenskiy's popularity has been falling in recent months as the situation on the battlefield continues to deteriorate and the government’s conscription campaign to shore up the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) becomes more aggressive.
According to a new survey by the Rating sociological group, trust in Zelenskiy jumped after Trump’s verbal attack, but he remains behind former commander-in-chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who Zelenskiy sacked last year and is currently Ukraine’s ambassador in London. The general remains the most trusted public figure in the country, with 76% of respondents expressing confidence in him.
The survey, conducted on February 20-21, found that 34% of Ukrainians do not trust Zelenskiy, while 16% expressed distrust towards Zaluzhnyi. Other prominent political figures received lower levels of public confidence. Serhii Prytula, a politician and philanthropist, was trusted by 34% of respondents, while 51% did not trust him, Ukrainska Pravda reports.
Former President Petro Poroshenko had a trust rating of 22%, with 76% of respondents expressing distrust. Former Speaker of Parliament Dmytro Razumkov was trusted by 19%, while 41% did not trust him. The lowest level of public confidence was recorded for Yuliia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna party, with only 11% of respondents expressing trust, compared to 86% who did not trust her.
The survey sampled 1,200 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older across all oblasts, excluding the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas, as well as areas where mobile networks were unavailable at the time of polling. The study was conducted using computer-assisted telephone interviews, with a margin of error not exceeding 2.8% at a 95% confidence level.
As the second stage of a US three-stage ceasefire plan, US President Donald Trump is insisting Ukraine hold delayed presidential elections before the concrete work on agreeing on the ceasefire terms are settled, with the apparent goal of removing Zelenskiy from the negotiating process.
Trump puts Japan between a rock and a hard place on Ukraine
Ukraine's ambassador to Japan has stressed that his country requires security guarantees as a prerequisite for any ceasefire in its conflict with Russia, amid concerns over US President Donald Trump's controversial and seemingly conciliatory approach towards Moscow in ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News this week, Sergiy Korsunsky, the outgoing ambassador scheduled to leave his post in mid-April after five years in Tokyo, expressed hope for continued US support while voicing gratitude for Japan's assistance to Ukraine.
Reaching an agreement with Russia that "guarantees Ukraine's security and enables the punishment of war criminals" is key, Korsunsky said to Kyodo just days short of the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of his homeland.
To many in Japan he is preaching to the proverbial choir, but with a government in Tokyo in need of liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from wherever it can secure the fuel, and with one eye on possible US tariffs hurting Japan’s export-focussed economy, times are changing.
Tokyo is gradually losing interest in supporting Ukraine even with long-term political foe Russia the eventual beneficiary.
That there is little love lost for Russia in Japan in unquestionable with the two countries still technically at war due to political disagreements over the Kuril Islands to the Northeast of Hokkaido; land lost to the-then Soviet Union in another, albeit much smaller and relatively bloodless, Russian land grab of the sparsely populated islands in the closing days of WWII.
Moscow still administers four contested islands 80 years later despite decades of negotiations and repeated Japanese efforts to allow an ever-dwindling number of exiled former residents the chance to one day return home. Ambassador Korsunsky used this issue to play his ‘trump’ card during the interview by adding that Japan’s claim to the Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, has Ukraine's "full support" before adding that it "makes no sense" to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kuril spat aside, it has also not gone unnoticed in Moscow that Japan, like its Group of Seven brethren including the United States under former President Joe Biden, have provided significant support to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion. Japan has also imposed a number of economic sanctions on Russian entities and individuals.
However with President Donald Trump back in the White House, the Japanese government has quietly gone into self-preservation mode.
This was most evident earlier in February when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba flew to Washington to cozy-up to the new US president in what most saw as an attempt to have Trump go lightly in terms of potential tariff imposition on Japan.
A joint Trump–Ishiba press conference in the wake of Ishiba’s visit to the Oval Office also saw Japan signalling its support for the development of the $44bn Alaska LNG project with President Trump revealing a “joint venture” between the two countries according to High North News.
How and to what extent future LNG supplies from the US will affect Tokyo’s existing deals for the super-chilled fuel with Moscow remains to be seen; Japan at present receives around 9% of its total annual LNG imports from Russia.
However, even with the Alaska deal with Trump in the bag, the fact that the 78-year-old president is building on ties with President Putin first established in 2017 leaves Japan between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
It is a situation Ukraine’s Ambassador Korsunsky has no doubt seen himself by pitching to keep the war on the front pages of the Japanese media saying the US surely "understands the nature of this war" and that Washington is well aware of "who began this war and has been killing many people" before, according to Kyodo, saying that he thinks it unlikely that US assistance to Ukraine will be discontinued.
Should that happen though, and should Trump cut off aid to Kyiv regardless of Korsunsky’s take, Japan will more than likely follow-suit.
Playing the diplomat to the end though, Korsunsky went on to state his appreciation to "all Japanese people who have supported" Ukraine; a standard modus operandi in flattery across Asia when coming cap-in-hand for continued recognition of a lost cause.
But flattery works in East Asia and in part is behind Tokyo having welcomed more than 2,700 Ukrainian refugees since the 2022 invasion.
Around 2,000 remain in Japan today according to Kyodo, but just how long they will continue to be welcome should Tokyo follow a possible shunning of Kyiv by Washington is anyone’s guess.
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