For Ukraine, the situation, or rather the diplomatic atmosphere, appears to have improved over the past 10 days.
A coalition of the voluntary committed supporters of Ukraine, along with the most prominent European leaders, the new Pope, Turkey, and, in its own way, China, have intensified the pressure on Putin to agree to a serious ceasefire, and on Trump to stop appeasing and in effect condoning the Russian war criminal.
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Embarrassed by Putin’s refusal to respond to his direct “peace-making” gestures over the heads of Ukraine and America’s allies, Trump’s battered ego and image have forced him to try once again to get Putin to at least seem to be receptive.
Hence, today’s announced phone call from the White House to the Kremlin – Trump seeking to save face and hoping Putin will help him out.
But the Russian imperialist and warmonger has shown no signs of backing down. He still wants to gut Ukraine, reduce it to a vassal-like, buffer-zone state, undermine the West and its values, and proclaim “I’ve made despotic anti-Western Russia great again!”
Putin will try to delay and confuse for as long as he can. He hopes that Trump’s moral equivocation and alienation of America’s allies and trading partners, and the debilitating impact this has had on the Western Alliance, will buy him the time he needs to destroy Ukraine or at least grab as much of it as he can.
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With Trump still refusing to call things by their real name – that Russia is the aggressor waging a barbaric war against a European democratic state, and that its leader, Putin, is a wanted war criminal – but simply repeating over and over his mantra about the need to stop a “horrible” war that’s killing “so many Russians and Ukrainians,” the Russian leader calculates he can get away with things.
Fortunately, Trump’s playing it both ways has finally galvanized most of Europe’s leaders, forcing them to crystallize a common position. This was made clear by the solidarity with Ukraine demonstrated during the recent visit to Kyiv by the leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland when they made it clear that they would not allow Putin to continue getting away with murder.
Trump apparently heeded this, but since has again been seen to be wavering in adopting a tougher line towards Russia – preferring to reach out once again to Putin in the hope that the two of them can make a deal as if only they count.
Still, new factors have arisen that might be regarded as setbacks for Putin and which might encourage him to consider some sort of conciliatory gestures.
A new Pope, who unlike his predecessor is not playing up to the Kremlin and supports Ukraine; Turkey, which defends Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, seeking the role of a mediator; China finding a last-minute compromise with the US on tariffs and also calling for peace; and the defeat of Moscow’s preferred candidate in Romania’s presidential election yesterday – these are some of the complications the Kremlin has to reckon with.
A major exchange of POWs, already under discussion, a temporary ceasefire, or even a meeting between Putin and Zelensky – these are the likely elements of a possible Trump-Putin “deal.”
So, we await to see how Trump will conduct himself. Will he reinforce the Western democratic fraternity, or will he continue to be a spoiler and wrecker? In other words, move on from here to absurdity.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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