Donald Trump's phone call with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine has sparked controversy. Trump's focus on direct talks with Putin, bypassing Ukraine's leadership, and his administration's willingness to concede on key Ukrainian demands, including pre-2014 borders and NATO membership, have alarmed European allies. The Trump administration's position on the conflict, which omits condemnation of Russia's invasion and its legal violations, has also drawn criticism.
Donald Trump likes to portray himself as the great deal maker. Typically, his idea of the “Art of the Deal” had tended to involve outlandishly bullish opening demands – whether that’s on tariffs or trade deals – before settling on more moderate, but still exacting conditions. This context makes what happened when the US president spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin about Ukraine so remarkable.
Trumpeting the call as “highly productive” on his TruthSocial website, Trump wrote that the two leaders had spoken about the “strengths of our respective nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together”. He said they had arranged to visit each other’s nations. In fact, the two will initially meet in Saudi Arabia – where Putin would not be arrested under the ICC’s warrant.
Likewise Ukraine’s future Nato membership – something the US committed to support in the 2008 Budapest Declaration, was also a non-starter. And he said the US would not only not join any international force deployed to ensure Ukrainian security, but that if such a force were constituted it would not be a Nato operation. As such, he said, it would not be covered by the alliance’s article 5 pledge for collective security. This effectively dooms this initiative to failure.
In addition to the concessions that Hegseth indicated the Trump administration has already decided to go along with, Russia is also likely to press for the demilitarisation of Ukraine. It will demand control, not just of the territory that it occupies, but of the remainder of the Ukrainian provinces that Putin has already declared to be “Russian”: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in the south and east of Ukraine.
German foreign minister, Anna Baerbock, meanwhile, said the call had come out of the blue without any consultation with Europe: “This is the way the Trump administration operates,” she said, adding: “This is not how others do foreign policy, but this is now the reality.” Baerbock said a deal must not be imposed on Ukraine and that Europe should be involved in negotiations: “This is about European peace. That’s why we Europeans must be involved.
UKRAINE RUSSIA TRUMP PUTIN NATO EUROPE DIPLOMACY
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