Donald Trump probably believed his own spin when, during the US election campaign, he suggested continuously that he could bring an end to the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
Trump’s confidence was probably related to the fact that he genuinely thought he had a common bond with Vladimir Putin, forged perhaps during his first term during the Russia “hoax” (or not) and his direct meetings with Putin in Helsinki, Osaka et al.
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We don’t really know what was said in those meetings, but I assume Trump was eager to disrespect his own intelligence community for their own efforts to reveal Trump as a Manchurian, or Muscovite, candidate, and compare notes. The two likely bonded though this process- the hunter, and the hunted.
On Ukraine itself, Trump likely thinks he knows the story, as his conduit for information will have been Russian, and Ukrainian oligarchs – people like himself in many respects who bent, or gamed, an arguably crooked system to make money. He will likely have interacted with them as many were his clients for his various real estate ventures. He feels most comfortable in the company of these people, oligarchs and his own US billionaire community, the bling set. For them, and Trump, likely the conflict in Ukraine is simply a battle over some prime real estate which can be resolved by simply getting the primes in the room, finding out what everyone’s price is, and them paying them their ‘dues” or “demands.”
Russian Guided Bomb Strike Kills Three in Zaporizhzhia
Often, I guess it will be finding who is the key rainmaker, paying them, and making everyone else work around, or give up or in to satisfy the demands of the stronger party.
Perhaps when it came to Ukraine Trump saw Putin as the rainmaker, the dominant party, which has to be paid off. Trump would have viewed Zelensky and Ukraine as the weaker party, as the non-nuclear power, and the country being invaded.
And I think we saw that in the now infamous Oval Office ambush of the unsuspecting Zelensky and the famous Trump put down: “you don’t hold any cards”. Soon after this, we saw the bullying by Trump of what he saw as the weaker party, Ukraine, by pulling military and intelligence support, and then trying to charge Ukraine for his role as peacemaker with the infamous “Minerals deal,” which looked to be little more than a “shake down.” For Trump the deal was easy, get Ukraine to back down, concede some prime real estate to Russia (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) and take a commission (the Minerals deal) for his efforts – plus a Nobel prize to boot.
The problem in all this is that Trump really does not understand Putin, or Ukraine for that matter. The same oligarchs from who Trump garnered his information set have little in common with ordinary Ukrainians, those that overthrew two governments in Ukraine through the Euromaidan and the Orange revolution or who repelled Russia’s invasion in February 2022 against overwhelming odds, and who are now bravely manning the front lines and all the support services of Ukraine’s war economy.
Actually these same oligarchs were the reason for those two revolutions in Ukraine which were push-backs against state capture of Ukraine by these same oligarchic interests. And similarly, Putin has little in common with Russia’s own oligarchs. He is a spy chief at heart, Russian Deep State, and while the Russian oligarchs put him in power in 1999, he soon put them into line during his first term – it was one of his first actions. Russian oligarchs act at Putin’s pleasure, not the other way around, and they now act under the direction of the Russian state, as agents now of the Russian (Deep) state.
Now, if you look at the motivations of the two key players here, Ukrainians (and Zelensky is a reflection of wider society – he does not direct Ukrainian society as Putin does Russian) and Putin, this war is about raw emotions and they view it as existential – more so for Ukrainians who’s very survival is actually at stake.
For Putin he does view the collapse of the USSR as the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century – remarkably a bigger, more significant event than WW2 – and he views the loss of Ukraine, in particular, as a dagger into the heart of Russia.
For Putin, Ukraine is Russia, and Ukrainians are Russians. And this war is about marking his place in Russian history by correcting the mistakes of the past and bringing Ukraine back into the Russian fold. It is not about NATO enlargement or securing a land corridor to Crimea. Why would Putin accept the loss of close to 1 million Russian dead and injured for such when Ukraine was not even close to joining NATO in 2014 when he first annexed Crimea, and it is still not close to joining NATO even now?
Putin’s ambition for Ukraine is not just the five oblasts currently all or partly occupied by Russian troops, but the whole of Ukraine. And he will not stop until he achieves that goal. He might take the five oblasts if given to him on a plate by Trump as the prize for accepting a short-term ceasefire, but Putin will aim to ensure that under any such ceasefire the rest of Ukraine remains unsustainable – that means insecure, without adequate security guarantees. He also knows that if he is able to hoodwink Trump in forcing Ukraine to concede the loss of those five oblasts, and without adequate security guarantees given to Ukraine, the loss to Ukraine will be such to totally destabilize the country, offering a prelude to another Russian intervention to take the whole of Ukraine.
Now for Ukrainians – the population, and not the oligarchs that Trump mixes with (and who would sell their soul for forty pieces of silver), it is also emotional.
It is about the very survival of their country and themselves as Ukrainians. Their parents and grandparents will have told them about the Holodomor of the 1930s, the Russian genocide conducted in Ukraine, and they now have seen in person the Russian war crimes in Bucha and Mariupol.
They know that a Russian victory means their extermination as a nation. It is existential. Yes, they can accept the de facto loss of territory currently occupied by Russia, but only if they see they have been given sufficient security guarantees that they and their country, remaining under control of Kyiv, has a future. Otherwise, the feeling is that they have no alternative but to fight on. And fight on, even if that means fighting on while the US walks away.
And now, we get to the summit later today in Alaska.
Trump will be mindful of his promise of a peace deal in 24 hours, and wants a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. He thinks this is about real estate and the five oblasts suffering Russian occupation. He can force Putin to concede ground, but to do that, Trump has to raise the stakes, and that imposes risks and costs on him and the US. Risks are of a military confrontation with Russia, a nuclear power.
Costs would be if sanctions had to be imposed – the 100% tariff on Russian energy exports to India, China et al. Those will inevitably disrupt energy supplies to global markets, boost energy and commodity prices and hurt US voters at the pumps or at the tills. And Trump did not prepare them for that, as he promised a deal in 24 hours.
Trump will hope perhaps that he can get Putin to compromise by promises of sanctions moderation and investment deals. But Putin will probably take those, bank them, view it as weakness from Trump, but will not deviate from his ultimate goal, which is to take Ukraine.
The path for Trump which has lower risks and costs, is still to try and force a bad deal down the throats of Ukraine and Europe.
This might not be sustainable, but Trump does not care – he just wants his short-term win, and Nobel peace prize nomination. And if it goes wrong, others can be blamed and Europe can clean up the mess. We saw this play out already with Trump’s Gaza peace plan – zero understanding (Gaz-a-Lago, seriously?), zero attempt to resolve underlying issues, and that conflict continues.
In Alaska, Trump will likely look to save face and buy time. Whatever platitudes Putin gives him, Trump will use to justify the line that it is worth holding more talks and delaying accepting risks and costs by actually going the extra mile to bring this war to an end.
Only by showing Putin strength, that the US means business, will cause Putin the bully to back off. Indeed, all the evidence from this war suggests that while Ukraine is existential for Putin, he is not willing to get into a direct conflict with NATO over Ukraine. Therein, time and time again, Putin set red line to NATO on arms supplies (T72s, Mig29s, HIMARS, Leopards, F16s, ATACMS, et al) to Ukraine, but Putin failed to honor them.
He knows that ultimately Russia would not last long in a conventional war with NATO in Europe – I think Russian performance would be similar to that of Iran over US and Israeli air an missile strikes. Any such conflict would be over in a matter of hours.
Putin respects power. Trump has it, but is unwilling to use it to actually bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
But it is only through the application of US power – arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia to force Putin to negotiate seriously, and then through US security guarantees to ensure that any peace is sustainable.
The irony is that Trump could win a Nobel Peace Prize on Ukraine, but he has to be willing to take risks and allow the US to bear some costs to secure the Nobel prize and deliver peace.
I don’t think he has the understanding or balls to take Putin on.
Reprinted from the author’s @tashecon blog! See the original article here.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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