Peace for Ukraine: what about without Europe?

By: Ricardo Israel - 23/02/2025

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Just as Zelensky is not a dictator, there is no doubt that the war began with the Russian invasion. However, it could have been avoided. Firstly, with the Minsk protocols, which were not complied with by the parties, as well as the mediation attempted by Türkiye in 2022, it could have been stopped when it was still possible.

The US and UK advised Ukraine not to accept these proposals and that it would receive all necessary support for the war; both had previously succeeded in getting the new republic to give up the atomic weapons left over from the demise of the former USSR in 1991, which, had they been preserved, according to many Ukrainians, the invasion would not have taken place. However, with 100,000 Russian troops on the border in February 2022, only one country could have prevented it or imposed peace, but the Biden administration lacked deterrence, and perhaps strength and/or will.

A few months after the invasion, I wrote in Infobae (“And Ukraine?”) about the possibility that “it would simply be forgotten” in favor of negotiating with Russia,” “a possible scenario and its degree of probability will depend on the winners and losers in the conflict we are witnessing… What is important and morally required is that it not be forgotten.”

However, today the context is different, in the sense that now the main motivation of the US president is his legacy, his place in history, where to understand what is happening before our eyes, if anything defines this government, it is that on its return to the White House it is trying to modify the type of regulatory State that emerged with Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a response to the great crisis of 1929, and internationally, the will to modify the world that politically and economically emerged after the Second World War, both the policy of alliances and the structure of economic rules, and in its place the US now proposes MAGA, Make America Great Again and America First as a strategy to confront China, who is challenging it at all levels for the scepter of the great superpower of the 21st century, which also explains the will to free the energies of American capitalism to better compete with a rival that is economically very strong, and therefore, a different challenge to what the USSR represented at the time.

However, when looking at what is happening with Ukraine and Europe, everything indicates from the response and verbal confrontations with both, that rather than a peace process, what we could be seeing is only the imposition of a Ceasefire, in a context where what is progressing best is the reestablishment of relations with Russia, after the attempted cancellation to which Putin was subjected due to the invasion.

The question is whether it will be the equivalent of the Cold War detente, of the post-Cuba 1962 agreements, or just a return to the relations that existed before the invasion. How productive the outcome will be will not only depend on the ceasefire, since I think we also have to consider something that Putin has been waiting for since the end of the USSR, having heard something similar from Gorbachev on a visit he made to Chile, that the collapse was so fast in 1991 that 15 nations, old and new, were born, but there was no border treaty to replace the empire, so there are also other unresolved conflicts, the additional problem being that Putin has always wanted negotiations with Russia as the only successor, that is, with him, who wants to do it with the US, and with no one else.

We must not forget that what disappeared was an empire, and that there is great continuity in foreign policy from the Tsars to Putin, with the USSR being the territorial form that the empire acquired under communism. And if history is any comparison, the case of Latin America and Spain offers lessons, since in the 19th century there were many wars over the borders left by the Spanish empire, just as the 20th century offers us examples in the Middle East, where there are current wars that have their origin in the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War.

For now, the honeymoon between President Zelensky and Washington seems to be over. To salvage something, it would be necessary to lower the decibels of mutual insults and reduce expectations, and it also seems that, if there is no improvement, the US will seek to force the Ukrainian leader to resign, given the still existing dependence.

In this regard, let us not forget that it would not be a novelty, given the way in which, during the Gaza war, in addition to the support given, with Joe Biden there were periods where everything possible was done to delegitimize Netanyahu as an interlocutor, and, therefore, his resignation. In addition, given what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan with those governments, it seems that now the objective could be to pressure for Zelensky's departure, not only because his mandate ended last year, where there was an open discussion with a double reading, since his supporters argued what the constitution says and the difficulties of organizing an election in the middle of a war, while his opposition used the example of Putin who held them, although by the way, they could not be called a democratic example, and that Zelensky could lose if his rival were Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former commander in chief of the Armed Forces.

The final blow could come when Elon Musk reviews Pentagon spending, where bad news could emerge about the use of American money, starting with the billions of dollars that Zelensky has claimed simply did not arrive, either in weapons or direct support.

For its part, Europe seems to be experiencing something reminiscent of Fidel Castro in the 1962 missile crisis, that is, being left out of what took place in its own geography, in the Cuban case, the installation of missiles aimed at the US with atomic charges, and in the European case, the invasion of Ukraine.

After finishing his first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia, Marco Rubio said that “the European Union will have to be at the negotiating table at some point,” in what seemed to be a division of labor, since as Secretary of State Rubio would lead formal meetings and the special envoy for Ukraine would fulfill other functions, so General Keith Kellog visited Zelensky the next day and upon leaving, declared that Ukraine would “soon sign” an agreement to exploit minerals in exchange for the multi-million dollar debt, and if the US manages to access the rare earths that interest it, that could be an insurance for Ukraine that Russia will not invade again, perhaps better than being part of Europe.

In this regard, Europe has not needed to take this step, since unlike the US, the payment of part of its aid is protected by documents that allow, in some cases, even collection with interest.

The fact that Europe has been so easily pushed aside shows something that is not pleasant, that for a very long time it has invested too little in its defence, increased by the British Brexit, so that what is happening now is an indication of its current irrelevance for geopolitical purposes and of its secondary importance in military terms, made visible by this war. Moreover, as Trump said in his campaign, he wants a quick ceasefire, for which he is even willing to sanction Russia to achieve it, adding recently that he will not sign without Ukraine's approval, although this was said before the exchange of insults.

Europe is facing several disadvantages. Firstly, a decision-making process that could take a long time, since 28 countries must come to an agreement, many of them with major differences between them. Thus, Macron gathered the countries closest to him to receive this support before a trip to Washington, where he will be followed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose “special relationship” with the US has cracked. However, getting everyone to agree will be difficult, and the announcement by the French president that he will soon bring together all the members of the European Union will surely be an invitation to paralysis or failure, since, from the start, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary described the Paris meeting as a meeting of “frustrated, pro-war” and anti-Trump leaders.

Secondly, there is no real European leadership, as France and Germany are in crisis, given Macron's political weakness and Scholz's defeat. And thirdly, in these three years, no peace proposal has emerged from the European Union, so the US is prioritising the end of what Trump has called a "carnage".

What could Europe do? One thing, keep the war alive, which is exactly what it is not going to do. It is therefore likely to keep its head down, coupled with the political changes in Germany and France that seem inevitable, and other electoral processes that have produced and will continue to produce, changes that go in the direction of conversation rather than confrontation with Putin's Russia.

The question is rather which European country is willing to go to war. We are talking about fighting, so beyond the rhetoric, we can identify Poland, whose military strength has grown a lot, to the level of Ukraine, and the small Baltic countries that, as a legacy of the Second World War, have Russia in Kaliningrad, an enclave annexed in 1945, which was previously Prussian Königsberg, it being unclear which others would be added.

In the case of France, Macron's statements are not taken seriously, and are apparently a nod to the Gaullist past of foreign policy. Thus, he once said that he was willing to send troops to Ukraine on the same days that, despite having threatened them, he did not even confront the Russian Wagner Group (now part of the State after the death of its founder Yevgeny Progozhin), in order to be able to remain in those former African colonies that provided uranium for the electricity of Paris and other large cities. Recently, troops offered for Ukraine turned out to be, in a second consultation, troops to keep the peace in case a ceasefire was agreed, it not being clear whether they would be military or only police functions, as has been done, for example, in Kosovo by other Europeans, ruling out that anyone wants UN forces, as in Lebanon.

For its part, the United Kingdom, as a prominent retired general said, should not even participate in a possible ceasefire due to the delivery of weapons from regular arsenals, using the example of the Malvinas case, where if it wanted to, the current government could not send a task force as Margaret Thatcher did in 1982.

The weakened position of Europe revealed by the war confirms that the problem today is to put enough pressure on the Russians, who have the advantage on the military terrain, in a war that began in three years with the failure of a quick victory by Moscow, with subsequent advances and retreats by both, and where the military performance of Ukraine has exceeded expectations, being at times even heroic, today, however, on the defensive, and where essentially at this stage we are witnessing a war of attrition, where Ukraine is subjected to constant bombardment for which it has no adequate defense, and where it received a lot of weapons to fight the war, but not to win.

The issue is that Russia is not only interested in territory, but also in keeping NATO from reaching its borders, hoping that Ukraine does not join Finland, which only joined on April 4, 2023. That will be part of the negotiation, and if the previous Trump administration is any guide, the ceasefire may be quick, but MAGA-wise, for the later stage it should be a negotiation as difficult or more difficult than those that took place with the USSR in the Cold War. Ukraine even has an ace up its sleeve, since the success of its incursion into the Russian Kursk makes sense for a future negotiation.

In this regard, contrary to popular belief (and what I thought until I had to review the facts for an academic seminar), during the previous administration, nothing important to Russia was compromised on America First. The idea that there was special treatment was established in the 2016 election, when Hillary Clinton's campaign invented the "Russian plot," that is, that Trump was some kind of "asset" and that Putin had manipulated the election in his favor, for which there is no evidence.

Today, it is clear that Trump has spoken well of Putin as he has of Xi Jinping, respecting them, but this has not translated into anything in country-to-country, state-to-state relations, since the previous Trump administration began the current turn of the US that conceives China as its only rival in this 21st century, and in the case of Russia, unlike personal relations and what international media reported, this did not translate into political or economic relations.

Thus, in the financial or commercial sphere, nothing important changed in Russia's favor between 2016 and 2020, nor in the political sphere, where some examples may be useful, since there was no major progress in terms of arms treaties, and we now know that during the Trump years, the US and NATO collaborated to modernize the Ukrainian army and begin the transition from Soviet to Western doctrine, both in terms of readiness and use of weapons.

A second fact is that, in those same years, not only as a government, but also by Trump personally, the gas and oil agreement between Angela Merkel's Germany and Russia was criticized, including the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline (number 2 was blown up during the war, without it being officially known by whom), vetoes that were only lifted by Biden.

So far, in what has transpired from the talks between Russia and the US, it is Moscow that wins, since it is the only party responsible for the war, and its invasion was not very different from what Saddam Hussein did in 1991 against Kuwait, also citing history, saying that it had been Iraq's 27th province. However, it is fair to add that the violation of international law is the issue more than democracy, as the conflict has also been presented in the international press, since at the time of the troops' entry, Russia and Ukraine were not very different in terms of democracy and corruption, with both countries ranking poorly on both indicators.

So what does the US have to gain? What it could gain is that the final negotiation will be the equivalent of repeating in reverse what happened from February 21 to 28, 1972, the week that changed history, when the Nixon-Kissinger duo visited Mao in Beijing and offered to open up to the world, for fear that the chaos left by the Cultural Revolution would put China under Moscow's control.

Today, the US would like to see this alliance that favours China and in which Russia is the junior partner stopped or at least reduced. Although there is still a long way to go before China catches up with the US, the only thing that is certain is that the distance is narrowing year after year, every year.

My impression is that, as much as they have mutual respect for each other, Trump and Putin, just as between 2016 and 2020, will be firm negotiators, who will put the interests of their respective countries above other considerations, so that the end of the fighting will be complicated if other issues are added, and the example of Korea in 1953 will be useful, so it will be in their own interest for both to limit themselves to a ceasefire.

Today, the stalemate does not allow the total defeat of the other, so the benefits of an agreement are greater than the cost, even if there is progress in the military field. Of course, as long as no agreement implies a serious mutilation of Ukraine, so rather than definitive peace, one should only think about a ceasefire, and where Ukraine should never suffer a territorial loss that exceeds what was discussed at the initiative of Türkiye in 2022.

What can simplify or complicate the negotiation are the characteristics of both Trump and Putin, since both feel providential for their countries, and it is not easy to write about them, because many have preconceived ideas, which makes it more difficult to understand them than to judge them.

And in conclusion, considering Rubio's track record, if there is a second stage, it should include Washington's interest in Russia stopping supporting the dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela in the way it has done, since it would help the transition to democracy in both, and now, there is nothing strategic for Russia on this side of the world, except to annoy the US.

@israelzipper

Master and PhD in Political Science, Bachelor of Law, Lawyer, Former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».