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<\/p>\nThough you wouldn\u2019t know from the smiles around the table at the White House this week, a trap has been set by Vladimir Putin designed to split the United States from its European allies. In Washington on Monday, Europe\u2019s leaders, plus Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelensky, agreed with Donald Trump that the killing in Ukraine should and can be ended as soon as possible. They lavished praise on Trump for reaching out to the Kremlin, despite having themselves treated Putin as a pariah for the past three years. And they even enthusiastically applauded the notion of security guarantees similar to Nato\u2019s Article Five \u2018all-for-one and one-for-all\u2019 mutual defence clause as a way to safeguard Ukraine\u2019s borders in the future.<\/p>\n
But behind every one of these apparently promising areas of agreement lurks a fatal misunderstanding of the intentions of the one man in the world who has the power to make the war stop \u2013 Putin.<\/p>\n
Let us not forget that the Washington talks were based on Trump and his team\u2019s highly optimistic interpretation of what Putin had agreed to in Anchorage, Alaska. That team included precisely zero Russia experts capable of reading the hidden meaning behind Putin\u2019s weasel words. Steve Witkoff, Trump\u2019s leading point man on Kremlin affairs, is a real estate lawyer with no experience of diplomacy. And the last time that Trump himself spoke in person to Putin, in Helsinki in 2018, he was quickly persuaded by his Russian counterpart that Kremlin election interference was all just a big hoax.<\/p>\n
One of Putin\u2019s great skills is appearing to be measured and constructive when in fact he\u2019s being insincere, intransigent or plain threatening. Take his innocuous-sounding remarks at the post-summit Anchorage press conference. In order to achieve a long-term settlement in Ukraine, Putin said: \u2018We need to eliminate all the primary root causes of the conflict.\u2019 Decoded, that is a clear reference to Putin\u2019s historical thesis that Ukraine is an invented country that has been used for centuries by Russia\u2019s enemies as a base from which to attack Moscow \u2013 and in his view remains so today. He called, apparently reasonably, for Trump to \u2018consider all the legitimate concerns of Russia and reinstate a just balance of security in Europe and in the world on the whole\u2019. But to Putin that \u2018just balance\u2019 means a withdrawal of most Nato forces from countries along Russia\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n
The remark that has caused most excitement among European leaders was Putin\u2019s assurance that \u2018naturally we are prepared to work on\u2019 Trump\u2019s suggestion that \u2018the security of Ukraine should be secured\u2019. Trump and his team came away from Anchorage in the belief that Putin had acquiesced to western security guarantees \u2013 and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Witkoff himself have been touting that as a major breakthrough.<\/p>\n
In truth it\u2019s no such thing. Security guarantees were discussed at length during the abortive peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in April 2022, and detailed plans of what those guarantees might look like were included in three drafts of a peace deal that was never signed. Back then Russia, absurdly, tried to insist on itself being a guarantor of Ukraine\u2019s security as in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, and on having a veto over any intervention. But that point was never resolved after Europe promised Ukraine it could win the war in the field rather than compromise at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
Trump was caught on a hot mic in the White House telling his European guests: \u2018I think Putin wants to make a deal. You understand that? As crazy as it sounds!\u2019 In fact, it doesn\u2019t sound crazy at all \u2013 Putin undoubtedly does want to make a deal. But what Trump has not yet grasped is that Putin wants to make it on his own terms.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\tPutin and Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, 15 August 2025 Getty Images<\/p>\n
And therein lies Putin\u2019s trap. His plan for the endgame in the war is to do everything in his power to convince Trump \u2013 his new best buddy and business partner \u2013 that he is behaving reasonably, making concessions, bending over backwards to keep dialogue open. At the same time, he will lay down a series of conditions that Zelensky will refuse to accept.<\/p>\n
At which point Europe will be forced to choose between heroic and principled words about refusing to compromise Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty \u2013 which would mean supporting Ukraine\u2019s war effort without US assistance \u2013 and an ignoble compromise with the Kremlin.<\/p>\n
Take the \u2018land swaps\u2019 which Trump has mentioned so many times. In reality, that\u2019s a reference to Putin\u2019s demand that Kyiv surrender control of the third of Donetsk and a small sliver of Luhansk provinces that he has so far failed to take. In exchange, Putin proposes to withdraw from small chunks of Sumy and Kharkiv provinces that he occupies, and also drop his claim on the remainder of Kherson and Zaporizhia. Effectively he\u2019s demanding some very valuable and heavily defended real estate \u2013 including the fortress cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Konstantinovka \u2013 in exchange for land that he has not yet been able to conquer.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, Trump has reportedly agreed that this is a reasonable price for Kyiv to pay for peace. Yet Zelensky cannot surrender this territory either politically or practically. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have died defending those positions, and it\u2019s possible that his troops would refuse orders to withdraw even if he tried to make them. And Ukraine\u2019s ultranationalists would be literally up in arms over such a betrayal, making Ukraine instantly ungovernable.<\/p>\n
\nThe brutal truth is that for the past three years the Europeans have been lying to Ukraine and themselves<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Putin has laid a similar political minefield for Zelensky and his European allies over legal recognition of the territories he has occupied. Again, Trump is reportedly in favour of forcing Kyiv to de jure recognise Crimea as Russian, while leaving the rest of occupied Ukraine in a legal limbo. Again, such a humiliation would be political death for any Ukrainian leader who made it and incur the armed wrath of legions of angry, heavily armed, well-organised and politically vocal veterans groups such as Azov.<\/p>\n
Putin has dozens more such humiliations in store for Kyiv and its backers before he is ready to end his assault on Ukraine. On the economic front, his wish list includes the lifting of sanctions, a resumption of flights and the unfreezing of billions of Central Bank assets. On the geopolitical front, he wants a constitutional guarantee that Ukraine will never join Nato and restrictions on weapons and troops Nato can deploy to border countries such as the Baltic states, Romania and Poland, as well as an assurance of no more Nato eastward expansion to Moldova and Georgia.<\/p>\n
In Ukraine, he would demand the enshrinement of Russian as an official language, granting Russian-speaking regions the right to their own education and examinations, and the restoration of the properties of the wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which remains loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. He would also insist on scrapping Ukrainian laws banning Soviet symbols and suppressing the memory of Soviet-era war heroes and cultural figures, in addition to allowing towns to restore demolished monuments to Russian tsars and writers. Putin would have Kyiv un-ban Russian-language radio and TV stations and newspapers, as well as political parties sympathetic to Moscow, and unfreeze the assets of the 5,000 people sanctioned for being pro-Russian by Ukrainian presidential decree.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s to mention just the top dozen of Putin\u2019s demands. Some he will get, some he won\u2019t. But we can be sure that he will push for all of them, and more.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\tZelensky signs the guest book following his meeting with Trump in Washington, 19 August 2025 Ukranian presidency\/anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The question for Europe is stark: what will they do if and when Ukraine refuses to submit? If Trump is fine about surrendering the remainder of Donbas, we can be sure that he\u2019s not likely to take a stand against Putin over such details as statues of Pushkin or the rights of the suppressed Russian Church (a major grievance for religious-minded MAGA supporters).<\/p>\n
J.D. Vance, the US Vice-President, has made his position on Europe clear. \u2018This is your neck of the woods\u2026 you guys have got to step up and take a bigger role in this thing,\u2019 he said earlier this month. \u2018If you care so much about this conflict you should be willing to [fund] this war yourself.\u2019 The US, for its part, \u2018wants to bring about a peaceful settlement to this thing, we want to stop the killing\u2019, he added. Trump has repeatedly promised to do his best to play the peacemaker. But if the Ukrainians and their allies don\u2019t wish to agree, Washington will walk away. \u2018Keep fighting,\u2019 wrote Trump last week. \u2018Good luck.\u2019<\/p>\n
The brutal truth is that for the past three years the Europeans have been lying to Ukraine and themselves. In the spring of 2022, Europe, led by Boris Johnson, encouraged Zelensky to fight on and promised Ukraine \u2018as much support as they need for as long as they need it\u2019. Ukraine kept its part of the bargain, and with the help of hundreds of billions in military and financial aid pushed Putin\u2019s far larger army back from over half of the territory it once occupied.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an extraordinary achievement. But it hasn\u2019t been enough to win. And by this point many of Kyiv\u2019s most passionate defenders in Europe are starting to acknowledge that there is little military or political point in fighting on. Others, like the Baltic nations, disagree.<\/p>\n
For those allies who believe that it\u2019s time to call it a day, the main point that remains to be decided is how Ukraine\u2019s reduced new borders can be protected in a way that Putin will not dare to challenge. Starmer and Emmanuel Macron\u2019s idea of putting Nato boots on the ground is foolish and misunderstands that the basis of Putin\u2019s paranoid logic in starting the war was to avoid precisely that outcome.<\/p>\n
The \u2018Nato Article Five-like\u2019 security guarantees of which Italy\u2019s Giorgia Meloni spoke in Washington this week (albeit accompanied by extravagant air quotes) sound formidable. The problem is that security guarantees have to be credible to work. And will Putin believe that Starmer or Macron will send their voters\u2019 sons to fight over Donbas, when they have already said that their proposed minuscule peacekeeping force will be \u2018backstopped\u2019 by US air power?<\/p>\n
Of more practical use is a proposal to create a network of air defences made of Patriot batteries and drones along the length of Ukraine\u2019s border, funded by Europe. That\u2019s what Ukraine\u2019s reported offer to buy $100 billion in US weaponry is about, and includes a staggering $50 billion to develop new-generation drones in partnership with the world\u2019s biggest experts in Ukraine itself.<\/p>\n
Ben Wallace, the former UK defence secretary, has called Trump the \u2018appeaser-in-chief\u2019 and warned that the peace process could be \u2018another Munich 1938\u2019, when independent Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to Hitlerite aggression. But that is a bad analogy. At Munich, Sir Neville Chamberlain failed to avert war. Today\u2019s Ukraine, with western help, has failed to win a war. But neither have they lost. Instead, like Finland in 1941, they have heroically fought a much stronger adversary to a halt and saved 80 per cent of their country and now face a bloody, attritional stalemate.<\/p>\n
Putin would like nothing more than for Europe to encourage Ukraine to fight on, and to lose even more of their land and independence. The question Ukraine\u2019s friends must ask themselves today is whether it\u2019s time to choose an unjust peace over a righteous but never-ending war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though you wouldn\u2019t know from the smiles around the table at the White House this week, a trap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[32,332,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-364557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-ukraine","11":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115072279983853047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}