Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Donald Trump and his circle continue to paint Vladimir Putin as a man yearning for peace, gifting the Russian President the geopolitical optics of the first high-level bilateral meeting since 2021 on Tuesday. But it is also a door-opening for Mr. Putin to press for a smorgasbord of concessions that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago; already, Moscow appears to have been granted its wish for restrictions to be lifted on its diplomatic mission in the United States.
The Kremlin’s conditions for ending its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine include a freeze of current borders, allowing Russia to retain two partly occupied oblasts; the lifting of Western sanctions; a block on Ukraine’s NATO bid; and recognition of Crimea as Russian. His asks could even extend to unfreezing more than US$300-billion of Russian central bank assets and the withdrawal of NATO forces from front line countries.
So far little has come out of Tuesday’s summit, led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Putin aide Yuri Ushakov summed up the 4.5 hours of talks in Riyadh as “not bad, not bad.”) But the U.S. delegation confirmed that territory and security guarantees will be on the table in future negotiations.
Meanwhile, as talks proceed without Kyiv’s participation, Ukraine sees no sign that the man that Mr. Trump is making out to be a peacemaker will halt his daily missile and drone attacks in the bloodiest European conflict since 1945. Mykolaiv Oblast, near Odesa, was hit by drones over the weekend, cutting off power and heating for 100,000 people amid a brutal cold snap.
Ukrainians are well aware that a transactional Mr. Trump is eager for a big win around Ukraine. After all, this is an image-obsessed man – he promised to end the war in 24 hours, though he later extended that timeline by several months – who racked up failures in North Korea, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
The question is: What price will Ukraine ultimately pay for Mr. Trump’s schoolyard-bully diplomacy?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would not recognize any agreements made without its involvement. “We want everything to be fair and so that nobody decides anything behind our back,” he said on Tuesday. However, if the U.S. and Russia decide on a truce and Kyiv refuses to accept it, Ukraine has little leverage. Mr. Trump, who has said Ukraine “may be Russian some day,” could cut off Kyiv’s access to vital intelligence and targeting information, or even disable the Patriot missile defence systems protecting Ukrainian cities. Mr. Trump’s approach to Ukraine resembles that of a slumlord: he is reportedly demanding repayment (up to half a trillion U.S. dollars for U.S. aid) without offering any security guarantees, which Mr. Zelensky has already rejected. One source described Mr. Trump’s approach as “pay us first, then feed your children.”
Looming over Washington’s outsized influence to decide Ukraine’s fate is the negligence of leaders in Britain, Canada and Europe to up their defence spending to this point and wean themselves off American largesse. If the U.S. were to abandon Ukraine tomorrow, European allies would be in no position to pick up the slack. It now appears Russia would face few headwinds should it decide to expand its conflict westward.
Even if Britain raised its defence spending to 2.5 per cent of its GDP, it would cost the country billions. Sending a credible peacekeeping force to Ukraine would require at least 30,000 soldiers, with 10,000 stationed on an enduring basis, according to British military analyst Sean Bell.
There are many questions ahead, including whether European leaders will follow British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recent pledge to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, a proposal that has already been met with resistance in Berlin and Warsaw. Will Mr. Putin, who launched the war, in part, because he alleged that NATO was expanding unchecked, tolerate NATO troops on Ukrainian soil? (Unlikely.) And can NATO countries even field the tens of thousands of soldiers required to staff an effective peacekeeping force?
In the three-plus years I’ve spent on the ground in Ukraine, the mood has never been darker. Fatigue, deep wounds from spilled blood and a sense of betrayal are weighing heavily on citizens and soldiers alike. From the beginning, they’ve seen themselves not just as defending their homeland, but also protecting the West from further Russian advances.
Even in the best-case scenario, Ukrainians may have to sacrifice significant portions of their land. Europe hasn’t been this vulnerable to a leader’s expansionist ambitions since the Second World War.
This is an enormous tragedy, playing out in slow motion – not just for Ukraine, but for the entire rules-based international order.