Some time this week, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are expected to hold talks concerning the future of Ukraine. Conspicuous by his absence is President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine; which seems to be at the behest of Putin, who I am sure only has designs to eliminate the country. Putin has for a long time, hinted that he wants to restore Russia to something akin to its former glory in both the Empire and the Soviet Union which was kind of a de facto Russian Empire anyway.
Although United States' Secretary of State Pete Hegseth has explicitly confirmed at NATO in the last few days that he believes that the United States under Donald Trump is committed to a sovereign Ukraine, given that Donald Trump very much appears to be persuaded by whomever was last in the room with him, and given his own rhetoric on Panama, and Canada, and Greenland, I think that we must assume that Pete Hegseth believes a fantasy. What is happening in Saudi Arabia between Putin and Trump, is likely to be horse trading over the future of hegemonies which are backed by nuclear weapons.
Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It has been a sovereign nation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. When it comes to international policy, a sovereign country cannot be constrained in choosing which organisations it wishes to join. As a sovereign nation, Ukraine has a very real and present threat in Russia, which is demonstrating that it is a very real and present threat by dropping rocket bombs on Ukraine. Let's be absolutely certain about this, this is a Russian war of aggression because Putin is a bastard. Any other interpretation of this, indicates that the person suggesting it, is also a bastard.
In that light, as a security issue, Ukraine is entirely sensible in wanting to join NATO. As the set of military treaties, which were explicitly designed to counter the threat of Soviet aggression should it eventuate, NATO was created in an era when war with the Soviet Union (perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons) was a very real and present threat. As the inheritor of Soviet power, Russia actively chooses to continue making that very real and present threat and its war of aggression against Ukraine is the outworking of that threat made good. If Ukraine wants to join NATO, then that process of how it should enter and the obligations that NATO and Ukraine have for each other, is a process Ukraine and NATO. It is unequivocally nothing to do with Putin or Russia.
This is where Donald Trump is making a stupid mistake. Any and all attempts to negotiate on this point with Vladimir Putin are completely wrong in principle. Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Furthermore, most of the rest of the world recognises Ukraine as a sovereign nation. At this point, I have no idea whether or not Donald Trump recognises if reality exists. If Ukraine has chosen to be a free country independent of Moscow, and the world recognises that fact, then by all accounts that should stand.
Trying negotiate with Vladimir Putin on this central fact, is pointless. It is also doomed to fail. If the United States thinks that Ukraine is a sovereign nation but Putin wants a vassal state, then what we have is an irreconcilable binary set of opinions which are impossible to satisfy. A sovereign Ukraine can not exist if it is a vassal state.
If we then take into account that Donald Trump who only sees the world as a series of transactions, and has repeatedly called for either the United States to leave NATO or force the member nations of NATO to pay for their own defence (which we must assume by inference means that they should buy US made hardware), then we have to come to the conclusion that unless NATO actually goes to the defence of NATO and believe Donald Trump that under his management the United States is an untrustworthy ally (to the point of non existence), unless NATO actually gets serious and backs its sentiments with corporeal military support for Ukraine which may include actual boots on the ground, then come the next Presidential Election in 2028 the question will be academic as there will be no Ukraine.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already indicated that British forces could be sent to Ukraine as part of a peace-keeping/self-defence force and while President Emmanuel Macron has given no such sentiment, the fact that NATO itself has been shut out of the negotiations might very well be enough of an indication that NATO needs to act quickly. As it currently stands, NATO actually has no obligation to offer support to Ukraine and given that the United States as a member nation loves to bang its fists on the table, then this might force NATO's hand.
Of course as an outsider I have very little idea of what actually happens behind closed doors and all I can do is watch on in horror, but it is worth remembering that history never automatically tends towards justice. History is written by the winner because they're the one who are left. What I fear is that Trump will demand a lot of concessions from Ukraine; yet at the same time cave in to Putin. There will literally be zero security guarantees to stop Putin from simply re-grouping and invading again. If Trump thinks he has invented terms for peace, then he is delusional. What he is gifting to Putin, will be nothing less than surrender.
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