In a little over 200 days in office, US President Donald Trump has put to bed global conflicts, met with “the most dangerous man in the world”, held court with European leaders in Washington and upended the global economic order. His critics claim his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin put Ukraine, Europe and America on the back foot. But can someone please explain to me the alternative? It would be to continue with an open-ended war of attrition that hurts everyone and helps no one. Will he now get Mr Putin to the table with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy? Maybe not. But surely, they are closer to a resolution to this conflict now than in the past three years.
Here’s why. It’s difficult to argue at this point that the Russian President can be stared down, stopped by sanctions or made to care about international ostracism. The question is, and has been from day one, about leverage. Mr Putin has it despite everything the West has thrown his way. That’s because no one was willing to fight for Ukraine except the Ukrainians. And of course, Mr Putin knew that from the beginning. With a weak president in the White House and Europe held hostage by its dependence on Russian energy, there was never a better time for him to make a move. Even now, the Russian war machine is running full throttle: scooping up territory in Ukraine, destroying infrastructure, killing and maiming. And despite a slowdown, this year the Russian economy will grow. Again.
Everyone is acutely aware of the limits of western interventionist measures. Unprecedented rounds of economic sanctions may have curtailed Russia’s external revenues, but they needed to do much more to end the war. Only going after India and China for their role in buying Russian crude, a move Mr Trump is now considering, could be more effective in denting Moscow’s war machine.
The truth is Russia can take the pain, but Ukraine cannot. No one will rebuild Ukraine’s damaged cities until the war is over. The West has proven beyond doubt that it will not fight for Ukraine, and unlike Russia, they are a country running low on manpower. One wonders, at this point, if anyone is bothering to think ahead. You cannot lose so many working-age citizens to fighting or flight and imagine a swift return to productivity afterwards. International institutions from the European Development Bank to Goldman Sachs are ready to swoop in the day a peace deal gets done; surely that’s a better outcome for Ukraine than an ongoing battle for territory that has already been lost.
Meanwhile, Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr Trump’s refusal to write a blank cheque for Europe have done more to promote continental cohesion and build up European institutions than seven decades of US bankrolling ever did. And Europe has much to gain by its belief that Mr Putin is its greatest existential threat; a military build-up means gaining a greater share of the international military industrial complex. That means jobs. Could Europe dig itself out of its perpetual economic slump? Look what a war footing did for Russia.
And as for Mr Putin, what would be the point of stopping now? The moment he does he is shut out of the mainstage with a weaker economy and a worrying access to nuclear weapons. Right now, he can still get a sit-down with the US President and make the entire European bloc, 750 million people, dance to his tune. Plus, with Mr Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, still holding off on sanctions that they say could be an impediment to peace, he’s got a longer runway. For the White House, there’s no sense in not giving the process a go before slapping on more sanctions; and for Mr Putin, the longer he can drag this all out the better.
In truth, it’s unclear what, if anything, could get the Kremlin to move forward on making peace; there’s already a personal relationship with the man in the White House and he knows Mr Trump is just a phone call away. It’s difficult to imagine the Russian President will walk away without real territorial gains and he’s not going to go for a Ukraine that is part of Nato. Plus, Mr Trump and his team will consider peace now just as big a win as peace at the end of his tenure in the White House. Mr Putin knows Mr Trump has a famously short attention span and much bigger problems back at home to tackle.
