Ukraine’s & Europe’s Next Moves

The diplomatic trajectory of the Ukrainian Conflict was unexpectedly altered on Friday after Zelensky disrespected his hosts, Trump and Vance, and was then kicked out of the White House without signing their rare earth minerals agreement. That deal was envisaged by the US as the next phase of the peace process since it would give the US tangible interests worth protecting in Ukraine, although not necessarily through the deployment of troops, and thus nudge Zelensky closer towards peace.

He’s been demanding “security guarantees” from the West more loudly than ever in exchange for ending the conflict even though he already obtained them from the US, the UK, Poland, and Germany, among others, throughout the course of the past year. None of them include the dispatch of troops, with them all just promising to resume their present level of cooperation (arms, intelligence, logistics, etc.) if another conflict breaks out, but it’s always been troops that Zelensky wants.

That’s because he knows that Ukraine can’t beat Russia so he hopes to use Western troops as a tripwire for escalating the conflict into a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis out of desperation that this would result in unilateral Russian concessions that could then end the conflict on better terms for his side. It remains a subject of fierce debate whether his meltdown last week was deliberately meant to ruin the rare earth minerals deal with the US or was an unplanned emotional outburst, but it might be a game-changer.

Trump warned near the end of their shouting match that the US could cut Ukraine off completely, though he’s yet to do so at the time of writing even though some reports claim that he’s seriously considering it, including ending indirect aid like intelligence and training. His National Security Advisor also strongly suggested that bilateral ties can’t recover so long as Zelensky is in power. Either or, be it cutting off Ukraine to some extent and/or promoting regime change, could radically alter the conflict.

Zelensky is aware of this as are his European partners with whom he met in London on Sunday as part of a preplanned meeting that took place just two days after Friday’s White House incident. British Prime Minister Starmer assumed joint leadership of a “coalition of the willing” alongside French President Macron comprised of countries that plan to continue arming and funding Ukraine. Starmer also said that the UK, which is Russia’s traditional rival, will deploy troops and planes as part of a ceasefire.

That plan is dependent on US support, however, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth declared in early February that the US won’t extend Article 5 guarantees to NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine. Unless that policy changes, and Trump hasn’t signaled any intent to revise it, then Starmer’s plot to deploy troops to Ukraine probably won’t amount to anything since he’d be sending them to certain death without US support. What might appeal to the US, however, is his and Macron’s partial ceasefire proposal.

They called for both sides to suspend attacks at air, sea, and against each other’s energy infrastructure, but Russia has absolutely no reason to go along with it even if the US is in favor. The talks that were started with the US in mid-February took place amidst the ongoing hostilities so the precedent exists for them to continue without even a partial ceasefire in Ukraine. Putin also just praised Trump’s approach while his spokesman Peskov said that the two countries now have largely aligned foreign policies.

That’s true, and in fact, it’s increasingly turning out that the US and Russia have more common interests right now than the US does with either Ukraine or the EU, which could lead to entirely new and hitherto unthinkable political configurations. Trump is openly aligning with Russia exactly as his opponents claim, but this isn’t due to him being “compromised” by Putin, but because he’s revolutionizing American grand strategy with a view towards de-ideologizing it and restoring the prior importance of pragmatism.

From the perspective of him and his team, Russia is an ideal strategic partner due to its shared conservative-nationalist views, unparallel natural resource wealth, and peaceful foreign policy. It’s not wishful thinking speculation that he considers Russian foreign policy to be peaceful either since he’s openly accused the West of provoking the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict that broke out in 2022. It was such public statements that convinced the Kremlin that his foreign policy revolution was sincere.

As a former businessman, Trump understands the importance of economic dealings in building ties between various partners, especially non-traditional ones. He doesn’t conceptualize the New Cold War as a struggle between democracy and autocracy like the Biden Administration and the rest of the West convinced themselves of, but as a struggle for natural resources and markets that’s just creatively sold to the public as something much grander. This makes it no different in principle from all prior competitions.

He's a straightforward guy so he prefers to describe reality as it objectively exists from his perspective instead of keep up any sort of charade, let alone the one that his hated predecessor concocted, and this direct approach towards dealing with sensitive issues naturally led to diametrically opposite conclusions. Upon de-ideologizing American grand strategy and the New Cold War, he predictably identified Russia as one of the most promising US partners in the world instead of an enemy or rival.

He accordingly set out to patch up their problems, which he began doing with the “goodwill gesture” of describing his polar opposite approach towards Russia and the Ukrainian Conflict, thus leading to the restoration of dialogue that aims to achieve a peace deal in the coming future. In the event that his pragmatic economically driven diplomacy succeeds, then the EU would be relegated to the status of the US and Russia’s junior partner instead of artificially held up by the US as an equal partner.

On that topic, Trump is deeply upset with what he considers to be the EU’s unfair tariffs against American goods and services, not to mention most of its members refusing to invest more of their GDP in defense like he demanded during his first term. He sees them as ungrateful freeloaders that are leeching off of the US and parasitizing its wealth in order to maintain their semi-socialist systems as he considers them to be. This lopsided relationship, as he understands it at least, must urgently end.

The best way to bring it about is to strategically partner with Russia, which will scare the EU into spending more on defense and thus giving a boost to America’s military-industrial complex, in parallel with coercing the bloc into resolving their tariff dispute in the US’ favor. This is one of the worst-case scenarios from the EU’s perspective since it’ll make it more difficult to fund their semi-socialist systems, thus risking popular resentment that could manifest itself in elite replacement after the next elections.

Instead of accepting this and trying to negotiate the best terms possible given the circumstances, the EU reflexively wants to oppose the US, which the likely next German chancellor explicitly declared as the bloc’s intent when recently saying that he’ll try to “achieve independence” from the US. The UK, which remains a liberal-globalist bastion and still aspires to restore its lost global leadership, is exploiting this anger by assuming joint leadership of the “coalition of the willing” that wants to intervene in Ukraine.

These dynamics account for the new Anglo-American divergence over that conflict in spite of the close partnership between them in waging their proxy war on Russia during the Biden Administration. The contrast between Anglo-European and American ideological and economic interests serves Zelensky’s political interests since he hopes to take advantage of them to prolong the conflict and remain in power by continuing to delay elections under the pretext of martial law.

He just needs to manipulate one NATO member into sending uniformed troops to Ukraine to be killed by Russia in order to then have the excuse for maximally pressuring Trump to “escalate to de-escalate” by provoking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis with Russia. It doesn’t mean that Trump will respond like Zelensky expects, but just that this compellingly appears to be the final card that he has to play for preventing a comprehensive partnership between the US and Russia built upon peace in Ukraine.

The EU also doesn’t want peace in Ukraine, let alone the comprehensive partnership between the US and Russia that might likely follow, while the UK wants to replace the US’ influence over the bloc. The convergence of these interests leads to the present state of affairs whereby the UK, the EU, and Ukraine all want to continue their proxy war against Russia while the US wants to end it, the first for ideological and economic reasons and the second for its own separately conceived pragmatic economic reasons.

As Trump sees it, US companies’ privileged access to Russian resources could help their country better compete with China in shaping the future of the global systemic transition to multipolarity that Secretary of State Rubio spoke about in late January, ergo why this is such a priority for him. Such access is contingent on coercing Ukraine into a peace deal that fulfills at least the majority of Russia’s declared interests in the conflict, which adds context to the pressure that he’s placed on Zelensky in recent weeks.

These goals are of grand strategic importance to the US and are why Trump is so insistent on getting what he wants from his country’s traditional partners, who he now openly treats as vassals since his patience is wearing thin in the face of their defiance. A self-sustaining cycle of political escalation is setting in between them that’s accelerating the erosion of mutual trust and risks leading to a possibly irreconcilable intra-Western rift of the sort that Italian Prime Minister Meloni said must be avoided.

The only way that can realistically happen is by the EU capitulating to the US’ demands, but its leading German and French members are still reluctant to do so, egged on as they are by the British. The US holds all the cards though and Trump knows it. He can therefore escalate this rift at any time of his choosing but seems to be restraining himself for now due to the deep and long-lasting resentment that could lead to. If he gets exasperated enough, however, then he might go all-out against them.

It's premature to predict exactly how everything might unfold since Zelensky’s behavior at the White House that led to Trump scuttling their rare earth minerals deal, which was supposed to be the next phase of the peace process, was unexpected and consequently led to these newfound dynamics. The US, the EU, the UK, and Ukraine are all operating in uncharted territory since none of them foresaw this happening so there’s an element of emotionality at play right now that’s influencing some of them.

As it stands, each side’s interests are thus: the US wants to swiftly end the conflict through Ukraine making major concessions to Russia in exchange for Russia granting US companies privileged access to its natural resources; the EU wants to perpetuate the conflict for liberal-globalist ideological and economic reasons; the UK supports the EU because it wants to replace the US’ influence over the bloc; while Zelensky wants Western troops in Ukraine but none are willing to go without Article 5 guarantees.

This state of affairs can’t continue indefinitely so something must soon change, which will likely either be Ukraine and the EU’s capitulation to the US’ demands or one of those two or the UK escalating in some way out of desperation to force the US into a brinkmanship crisis with Russia. Capitulation is more likely than any of those three escalating since Trump has made it clear that he won’t be dragged into a hot war with Russia even if he has to throw the US’ traditional allies under the bus in pursuit of its own interests.