Europe needs to shove Trump aside – it has the power to stop Putin in Ukraine and it must use it
There is no reason why Ukraine should entertain a Russian-American proposal that will not bring peace to the country, largely because it is far from clear how the US could enforce such a plan.
Indeed, now is the time to ditch the White House altogether and for Europe – dismissed by the US president as “weak” – to take the lead.
Much is being made of how Ukraine is refusing to give up the land in the Donbas, eastern Ukraine, which remains under its control.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy sent to talks with the Kremlin – dubbed “Dim Philby” by the British intelligence community for his witless pro-Russian bent – may not understand that doing so would mean Ukraine hands over its most potent line of defence.
He would not comprehend why else it might be a terrible idea. Donald Trump would neither grasp the implications of the concept nor, if he did, would he disapprove.
Put simply, handing over Ukrainian territory is forbidden under the nation’s constitution. Any attempt to do so would cause political meltdown, deep divisions, and threaten to collapse the Kyiv administration.
That is exactly what Russia wants while it uses any peace plan or ceasefire period to rearm and reset for further invasion of Ukraine, or picks another target in the east of Europe.
Witkoff and Trump see Ukraine as a business opportunity. The US administration is now so infected with this nonsense that its own staff, including the president, posts on social media that it also sees Europe as a problem – not Russia.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer, French president Emanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, met in London in an effort to show solidarity with Kyiv before new proposals are carried to Washington.
Merz said he was “sceptical” about the Russian-American peace plans, which endorse Russia’s land grab, enfeeble Ukraine’s military, scupper its plans to join the Nato, and demand unconstitutional presidential elections.
The other leaders have been more circumspect and diplomatic in their language; Starmer is seen as Europe’s Trump Whisperer.
By now, it would be clear that Trump, who believes Europe is soon to be overrun by non-Europeans and is failing to protect democracy, has stripped every branch of US democracy of its leaves and is as fatal to it as Agent Orange.
As Russian expert and former White House adviser Fiona Hill recently told the World of Trouble podcast, Trump so craves the approval of autocrats and the power they wield that he will do anything to achieve it.
This is not only un-European, it is a threat to the fabric that has bound the liberal democracies of the continent for 80 years.
