Another Day, Another Russian-US Attempt to Betray Ukraine and Destroy Europe
The Putin-Trump surrender plan will lay the groundwork for Russia to expand its attacks on other parts of Europe
The disgraceful, one-sided ‘peace’ plan cooked up in Moscow with the craven support of Trump’s White House is a disaster for Ukraine. I won’t go through it line by line here as there are many good analyses of this awful document, including this from the Robert Lansing institute. The document’s drafting has very clearly been done by a Russian hand and agreed to by a US team with little or no knowledge of diplomatic agreements and a limited eye for detail. For example, the second clause of this bizarre text reads:
2. A comprehensive and comprehensive [sic] non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.
The repetition of the word “comprehensive” points to a Russian original text that has been auto-translated, with two different Russian words having been rendered as the same English word (I am no Russianist, but a friend has suggested possibly всесторонний and углубленный. The second of these means something more like ‘in-depth’.) The final sentence of this clause is laughably inexact with almost limitless capacity for reinterpretation. The rest of the document contains similar howlers which point to one of the many tragedies of this situation: the United States has a huge and highly-effective diplomatic service, including numerous Russia specialists, none of whom appear to have been involved in working up this text.
The entire status of the document is far from clear: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reported to have told Senators that it was not US policy, merely “the wish list of the Russians” that had been shared with the Ukrainians. It clearly is a Russian wish list, but it appears also to be American policy, with Rubio seeming to contradict himself a little later with a Twitter post where he stated “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.” The only conclusion we can draw is that Rubio is being frozen out of the process and has little or no idea what is really happening.
The biggest bombshells in the text are the assumption that Russia will be recognised internationally as in “de facto” control of parts of Ukraine it has invaded and that Ukraine will have its army halved in size (with no restrictions on Russia’s forces) and be banned from joining NATO, which will accept no new members - giving Russia an effective veto over the alliance of which the US is still, on paper at least, a member. At the same time, Ukraine is expected to be on an accelerated pathway to EU membership - something we might welcome but which requires unanimous acceptance from EU members, none of whom have been consulted.
Perhaps the most distasteful element of the text is the proposal that “$100bn in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine. The US will receive 50 per cent of the profits from this venture” whilst the rest of the frozen funds (which are domiciled in EU institutions) will be used for a US-Russian joint investment vehicle. The deal would also be the opportunity for the US to complete Trump’s long-held desire to reintegrate Russia into the global economy and the G8. This is the Kremlin trying to monetise its war crimes, in willing partnership with the United States. Oh, and the same section blithely announces that Europe will come up with another $100 billion for reconstruction, again without any consultation or debate.
Very clearly, the “deal” as drafted is a disaster for Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has summed it up neatly: “Ukraine is facing an extremely difficult choice: either lose our dignity or risk losing a key partner.” If implemented, or even if a version of this deal is implemented, Russia is handed victory on a blood-spattered platter. But it goes further than that: this deal would mean the end of European security. Russia would have control of much of Ukraine and would return to extreme interference in its politics. It would be free to rebuild its armed forces, now with their world-leading experience and knowledge of drone warfare, whilst it planned its next moves in Europe.
There’s no reason to believe that the authors of this deal have any intention of honouring NATO’s mutual defence commitments (article 5); I’ve always believed that Trump would not come to the aid of any European country attacked by Russia, and I think this is further evidence of that. So this deal is both handing victory to Russia whilst giving it the space to rebuild its military capabilities in preparation for further attacks on Europe. This is in the wider context of Russia’s escalating hybrid war against NATO countries, with a Russian spy ship in UK waters, Russian agents blowing Polish railway lines and constant drone incursions around European airports.
The deal is so bad that the only thing that one can hope for is that Europe’s leaders kick it into the long grass, while pretending to be “studying the details”. Trump, with his toddler attention span, might lose interest. If the Americans do insist on doing Russia’s dirty work for them, Ukraine’s defeat is only days away, as is Europe’s.