Trump’s announcement of talks “immediately” between the US and Russia over Ukraine after a 90 minute call with Putin, shocked Ukraine and Europe despite Trump’s outstanding promise to end the war in 24 hours when he took office. European leaders got a second gut-punch in Pete Hegseth’s statement that the US had heard Russia’s demand that it would not agree to a settlement unless Ukraine really really was not going to enter NATO:
BREAKING: 🇺🇲🇺🇦 US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced somewhat the status for Ukraine before the start of the negotiations with Russia:
– Ukraine won’t be a member of NATO
– No return to pre-2014 borders
– U.S. will not send troops in Ukraine
– No more relying on the U.S.… pic.twitter.com/UFWZ4arm2B— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) February 12, 2025
European, UK, and above all Ukraine leaders should not be surprised at this development. There’s no appetite in this Administration or Congress to pour more arms and treasure into the war; Trump’s talk of mortgaging Ukraine mineral wealth (when pretty much all of it already has owners and/or is in Russian control) looked more like yet another dominance game of Trump’s versus Zelensky to remind him of his dependence on US largesse, as well as a ham-handed effort to pretend to Russia that the US conceivably has a politically acceptable way to keep funding Ukraine.
However, the flip side is many commentators have been reduced to frequent use of the word “delusion” to depict the European/Ukrainian grip on the trajectory of the war. The Collective West ex the US seems to be in the state of someone who has been seriously unwell and has gotten bad blood test readings, but is still somehow unprepared when imaging comes back telling him he has Stage 4 cancer. And that’s charitable. It’s hard to see Ukraine’s five year survival odds as being as high as 20%.
Since this is, as Lambert is wont to say, an overly dynamic situation, we’ll make a few observations that, as far as we can tell, seem to be sound but we don’t yet see in circulation. We’ll then turn to the UK/Europe/Ukraine meltdown and their insistence on crashing the negotiation party.
We’ll also return to the Article 51 issue Hegseth raised in the form of a clarification and correction from Auerlien via e-mail. We’ll also take a brief look at UK/European reactions.
Initial Thoughts
These developments will deliver a severe blow to what is left of Ukraine morale, most importantly among its military. One can expect an increase surrenders/running away. It will also make already difficult recruitment even harder.
That should result in reports of even more breakdowns on the front lines and corresponding increases in the speed and/or breadth of Russian advances.
Putin may not want to look like he is poking a stick in Trump’s eye via looking like he is increasing the tempo in order to step up pressure. Russia still has to take and clear Slaviansk and Karamatorsk, for instance. Operations like that would be less embarrassing to Trump than marching to the Dnieper if/when becomes possible.
Despite yet another Trump “shock and awe” show, Trump needs Ukraine and European cooperation unless he is willing to walk away. Trump is now taking the contradictory position that he wants to end US funding yet still push the other NATO members around by not merely acquiescing to a deal they detest, but also committing substantial resources to it while the US stands aside. This is a violation of the golden rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
Note also that Hegseth’s “You are on your own” regarding security guarantees may not be as black and white as it sounds. Hegseth said no to ground forces, which leaves open the possibility of US air support.
And as we’ll discuss more below, from news stories, UK and European leadership are incandescent over the idea that the US and Russia are negotiating the end of the war without them. A preview from Colonel Smithers via e-mail:
On the way to Oxford this morning, I listened to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. It was deranged, if not infuriating.
And Aurelien’s reply:
I read as much as I could bear to this morning of the hysterics of European leaders. As a number of us have been saying for a while, this is not a case of the US driving reluctant European puppets forward: the visceral hatred of Russia is stronger over here than over there, and could result in a really nasty showdown across the Atlantic
.
Ukraine has agency and Ukraine is not even remotely on board. Despite Ukraine running out of men and weapons, it is still fighting. Remember that possession is 9/10 of the law. Despite the close to certain outcome of an eventual Russian win, in that scenario. Russia is faced with continuing to bleed and shell Ukraine until it surrenders and/or its military really does collapse. In that scenario, Russia also bears the burden of occupying and administering Ukraine as well as rebuilding it.
Putin, despite being willing to talk to the US, has made clear that if Ukraine survives in some form, it needs to make its own commitment to no NATO membership as well as neutrality, preferably enshrined in its constitution. But as Putin has repeatedly pointed out, Zelensky signed a degree in October 2022 barring negotiations with Russia as long as Putin was in charge. Putin says the Russian reading of Ukraine’s constitution is that Zelensky, by virtue of his presidential term having expired, cannot take any binding acts on behalf of the Ukraine government, which would include reversing the decree, which Putin deems to be necessary to start any meaningful discussions with Ukraine.
In other words, clearing up the legitimacy of rule in Ukraine is on the critical path to concluding any deal. Putin has suggested that the Russian reading is the head of the Rada has constitutional authority to act under martial law when the President’s term has expired, but as far as I can tell, no one in Ukraine has been willing to endorse that idea.
So the presumed fallback is Ukraine will have to hold elections. Zelensky has already deemed that to be impossible. His latest argument:
Zelensky says all Ukrainians are against elections, because they know what will happen
He thinks Ukraine would LOSE its army and be forced to ‘suspend’ the conflict pic.twitter.com/LNIhr5D8BK
— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) February 9, 2025
In a sign of continuing resolve, Zelensky just sanctioned and froze the assets of the most plausible pretender to his throne, former president Petro Poroshenko. And with Musk just having killed the USAID foreign propaganda/protest machinery, the US has little ability to influence election outcomes. From Reuters:
Ukraine has imposed sanctions on former president and opposition politician Petro Poroshenko, including asset freezes and a ban on withdrawing capital from the country, a presidential decree published on Thursday said….
The decree did not say why the sanctions were imposed, but Zelenskiy said earlier that his security council would announce sanctions targeting people who had undermined Ukrainian national security.
“The billions made in what amounted to the sale of Ukraine and Ukrainian interests and Ukrainian security must be blocked and made to work for the protection of Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he said.
And what of the Banderites? They still wield disproportionate influence in Ukraine, if nothing else due to their abandon and glee in reporting to extreme violence. Yet their sell-by date is coming soon.
Do they hold fast to their weird eschatological tendencies and dig in and keep fighting? They can expect Russian war crimes trial unless they run away to say the Baltic states, Canada or London. If they stay, unless Zelensky finds a way to flee, he is effectively their hostage (Scott Ritter and other believe that Zelensky’s personal security forces have a significant Banderite participation). Remember, per above he’s useful to hold up elections to then thwart Ukraine signing any final deal.
Aurelien on the Trump Team’s confused thinking on Article 51 and peacekeeping. I am sure Aurelien would have weighed in on his excellent site, but he publishes on Wednesdays, and the news of the planned negotiations broke shortly thereafter. I’m sure he will have plenty to say next week, particularly since we’ll have a better grip on facts v. rumors v. posturing. In the meantime, we are very grateful for this input via e-mail:
You may want to comment on Hegseth’s remarks about European forces sent to Ukraine
“not having Article 5 protection.”I’m not sure whether he is confused, or journalists or both, but we need to remember that the Washington Treaty came before the NATO structure was established, and exists independently of it. If NATO were to fold up tomorrow, the Washington Treaty provisions would still apply unless the Treaty itself was denounced by all.
That said, the “all for one” provision of Art 5 has only ever applied within the area of application of the Treaty, which is set out in Art 6. That area doesn’t include Ukraine and never has, so nothing has changed.
What he may be saying in code is that US forces in Europe (and they’re tiny anyway) would not intervene in the case of a crisis, nor would the NATO command structure (headed by a US General) be used. In the latter case, depending on the size of the operation, the Europeans might find it very hard to identify an HQ which was capable of commanding an operation of the size and complexity envisaged: there may not be one.
Aurelien was dismissive of Hegseth and others offering “non-NATO forces” as part of a peacekeeping mix:
None of the Global South countries has experience of conducing, let alone planning and commanding, such an operation. Who’s going to command the operation? What will be the language of command? Where will the strategic level HQ be? What doctrine will they use? Where will the operational HQ be? How will a Ghanaian battalion deploy to Ukraine? There have been some African PKO missions in Africa, but funded and partly equipped by the EU, and they often haven’t ended well.
Is Russian leadership constrained in how much it can concede, if things ever got that far? We pointed out in our last post on the prospects for negotiations that Putin and other leaders have gone on and on and on and on about how what a no-good duplicitous bunch the US is. Mind you, these recitations have gotten longer and more specific over time. That means that top officials have been relentless reinforcing with the Russian public the notion that the Collective West is completely untrustworthy.
So how can Russia possibly sign a pact given that? Hasn’t its leadership salted the earth as far as popular views are concerned?
Safety First made similar (and more specific) observations on the Ukraine negotiations post from the start of the week:
But it seems evident that Putin intends to keep talking – as I recall, more to mollify the Indians and the Brazilians than the Chinese – but not to compromise on any of his asks.
Separately, one part of the equation that Yves’ post does not really seem to address is Russia’s internal political picture, which I would argue is fairly complex. Not in terms of “political parties”, but, rather, the various key stakeholders and their respective interests, as well as public opinion as a whole. Both the military and big sections of the general public would react quite badly to a “Khasavyurt Part 2”, that’s a reference to an incredibly bad deal Yeltsin entered into to end the First Chechen War ahead of the 1996 elections. [And then spent 1997-1998 beating off a challenge by general Rokhlin, ultimately having him killed.] The officialdom appears split, but at least a fraction of it is still stuck in the old “neoliberal pro-western” frame of mind rather than the new “keynesian-nationalistic”. These are basically the people who speak with Anatol Lieven whenever he visits. And then there are the oligarchs, and who knows what they are thinking, but I stress that Putin’s literally very first public meeting after announcing the SMO was with the top 40-50 of them. So I suspect at least some are very much onboard, but how many exactly is hard to say.
I half-suspect that remaining “open to” negotiations, but in reality filibustering them a bit – either Trump gives me the sun and the moon, or I claim that the US is once again negotiating in bad faith, which it probably is – allows Putin not only to appease his BRICS partners, but to keep all of these factions more or less in line. [At least, as long as the military keeps on winning…]…
Insofar as anything Trump says, does or wants, to me the key giveaway that he and his boys do not understand what they are getting into is the assertion that after any ceasefire or peace agreement, the US will “rebuild the Ukraine’s military”. This is pure fantasy-land. Then again, were I an evil Dick Cheney clone pulling the strings behind US policy, this is precisely the kind of a poison pill I’d keep slipping into the negotiations to make sure they failed, so that the war would continue, figuratively, to the last Ukrainian, while I looked for a different avenue through which to pressure the Russians. Hell, pro-US regime change in Khazakhstan, especially if it led to a civil war type of scenario, would upset a whole truckload of apple carts for Russia, China and Iran…
Heads Exploding Across the Pond
A sampling, since there’s plenty more like this.
Financial Times, lead story: Europe reels after Donald Trump announces US-Russia talks on Ukraine
However, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday ruled out US troops being deployed or any role for Nato in co-ordinating boots on the ground after the end of the conflict. “Any security guarantee should be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” he said.
A scenario in which “the US says, ‘We did the ceasefire, and all of the rest is for you to clean up’ . . . wouldn’t work [for us]”, said one EU diplomat involved in discussions between European capitals.
“There is a limit to what the EU alone can realistically provide in terms of money, arms, and at some point maybe boots on the ground,” they added.
Telegraph, EU criticises Trump’s negotiation tactics in Ukraine peace talks
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, said the US had not displayed “good tactics” after he vowed to “immediately” start negotiations with Vladimir Putin following a 90-minute phone call.
Ms Kallas also demanded that Ukraine and Europe be central to any peace negotiations and vowed to continue supporting Kyiv should it choose to reject a US-Russia peace deal.
“Any deal behind our backs will not work, any agreement will need also Ukraine and Europe being part of it – and this is clear that appeasement also always fails,” Ms Kallas told journalists before a meeting at Nato.
It came after Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, said he regretted that Mr Trump had made “concessions” to Russia about freezing the conflict before talks even started.
The Times Trump’s Russia-Ukraine peace plan ‘has gone down like a bucket of cold sick’
Not long after Hegseth’s opening remarks, [UK defence secretary John] Healey was mid-way through a press conference with Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, when details of Trump’s call with President Putin came out.
Back inside the public areas of Nato, officials disappeared, presumably to thrash out their response — or merely express their horror. Putin had been handed a way back in from the cold.
