Trump’s strategy for Ukraine is to surrender

“We’ll be talking about land. A lot of land is a lot different than it was before the war, as you know.” Donald Trump, speaking before a phone call he plans to have with Vladimir Putin today.

So what? He was essentially repeating Putin’s line that ceasefire talks should be based on the “reality on the ground” – ie on the illegal annexation of nearly 20 per cent of Ukraine. To take that as a starting point would

• reward an unprovoked invasion;
• endorse the re-drawing of international borders by force; and
• amount to a surrender by Ukraine and its allies.

What else Putin says. Last week he neither accepted nor rejected the US plan for a 30-day ceasefire but said a ceasefire should remove “the root cause” of the conflict. Translation: it should end the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state.

What else Russia wants. Putin has a list of demands he knows are unacceptable to Ukraine, including

• its disarmament;
• no foreign troops or weapons in Ukraine; and
• full annexation of four partially occupied eastern regions already described in the Russian constitution as “Russia’s new regions”.

All “peace talks”, Putin says, should be based on proposals discussed in Istanbul in 2022 that entailed the capitulation of Ukraine and were never signed.

What Ukraine needs. Kyiv’s top priority is to prevent any ceasefire being used by Russia to regroup, rearm and attack again – a plausible scenario given Russia’s war machine is working 24/7 and consuming up to a third of its budget. For this, Ukraine needs long-term security guarantees and foreign troops as peacekeepers.

What Trump wants. A deal at any price, whether measured in lives lost, democratic values trampled on or assets seized. “We’re already talking about that – dividing up certain assets” including power plants, Trump said, probably referring to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Russia since 2022.

Trump gives no sign of grasping the complexities of a ten-year war of attrition, and every sign of agreeing with Putin that security guarantees for Ukraine should be too vague to enforce and Nato membership for Ukraine should be ruled out.

What that means. Trump’s strategy for “peace” is a Ukrainian surrender; he is not on Ukraine’s side.

Who is? Keir Starmer is ready to deploy British troops to Ukraine “to preserve the peace agreement and deter Russia”, reports the Times, but it’s highly unlikely Russia would agree to their deployment. So…

Don’t hold your breath for a durable deal this week, least of all one involving a European military presence in Ukraine.

But do ask about assets. The EU holds €210 billion of frozen sovereign Russian assets, of which €183 billion is held by one bank in Belgium. So far only the interest on those assets has been authorised for use. €3 billion of this was sent to Ukraine in January but that is only a tiny fraction of what’s needed to fund Kyiv’s war effort.

The UK and Europe have been grappling with the morally compelling but legally difficult question of whether these assets could be seized and handed to Kyiv.

Arguments against include:

• Fear of asset seizure would hurt the EU’s standing as an attractive investment destination.
• Countries with large Euro reserves but poor human rights records like China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar might be reluctant to hold the currency in future, weakening it.
• Seizure would be illegal, contravening ‘sovereign immunity’ which protects a state's assets from being used to pay its debts.

Arguments for include:

• The moment of peak risk to the Euro and EU as an investment destination was the moment Russia’s assets were frozen; further damage caused by permanently or formally transferring them is unlikely.
• Transfer of Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine would be a proportionate response under international law to invasion, occupation, expropriation, mass rape, mass murder and the kidnapping of hundreds of Ukrainian children.

What’s more… The EU plans to establish an International Claims Commission to demand reparations from Russia on pain of seizure of the frozen assets.

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