Putin’s War and Trump’s Peace
The coming weeks and months will show how deeply the cohesion between Trump and Putin goes, beyond their mutual sympathy for each other.
By Rafael Rojas* (Confidential)
HAVANA TIMES – It’s been three years of a cruel and devastating war between brothers, in which more than a million people have died. A completely avoidable war, provoked by the unilateral Russian invasion of Ukraine, ordered by Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022. Peace should be a priority, not only for the US Government but for the entire international community.
Imagining any roadmap to peace requires a return to the origins of the conflict, on which there’s no international consensus. According to the Kremlin, the “special military operation” was ordered to “de-Nazify Ukraine”, following the election and consolidation of Volodymir Zelensky who succeeded Petro Poroshenko as head of the Ukrainian government.
Zelensky’s government accentuated the anti-Russian and pro-Western line of Ukrainian policy. In mid-2021, the so-called Lublin Triangle, consisting of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, launched a project to accelerate Kiev’s integration into the European Union and NATO. However, the project generated more than a few reservations, and even some open opposition within the European bloc.
Minimal historical rigor reveals that the thesis that the war was necessary because of the imminent incorporation of Ukraine into NATO, so much exploited by the Russian media and its allies in Latin America, isn’t sustainable. Even today, despite Russia’s outpouring of aggression in Ukraine, there is no agreement on that point. In the summer of 2024, the United States and Germany opposed Ukraine’s membership in the alliance, although they approved a very ambitious military assistance plan.
In addition to “de-Nazification,” which explained the attacks on Kiev and other cities near the capital or the border with Poland, it became clear from the first days of the war that another, more tangible, goal of Moscow was to annex further territories in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. So if the maximum goal was the overthrow of Zelensky and the neutralization of the pro-European current in Ukraine, the minimum was the extension of Russian borders.
To this day, both objectives are present in Putin’s strategy. Russia does not recognize the legitimacy of Zelensky’s government. Before the Ukrainian government declared martial law and postponed the 2024 elections, Russia alleged they didn’t recognize it because they considered Zelensky a puppet of Western policy. In recent months, that justification has been heard less; now, Putin’s rationale is that Zelenski is a de facto ruler, not validated by the ballot.
Apparently, the peace project that Donald Trump has proposed to Vladimir Putin would contemplate Russia’s territorial expansion over the Dombas area. As with [the annexation of] Crimea in 2014 or any other territorial expansion of any modern empire – think about the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1836 – the incorporation of Donetsk, Lugansk, or Zaporizhia has been justified as the will of the population of Russian origin in the zone.
Less clear within Trump’s plan is the status of Putin’s second objective, the end of Zelenski’s government and the reorientation of Ukrainian policy. But from what little and confusing information has been released, it seems that Putin would be willing to agree to a ceasefire in exchange for the handover of territories. He could then continue the war by other means, simply doing everything in his power to undermine Zelenski’s government, until it is overthrown.
The sense of victory projected by the Kremlin these days, from the downgrading of Ukraine in Trump’s project, will be short-lived. The European Union will not abandon Kiev, and the position of Brussels continues to carry weight, despite the many triumphalist proclamations these days from analysts who would like to see the world divided between the United States, China and Russia.
In the coming weeks and months it will be seen how deep the cohesion between Trump and Putin goes, beyond the mutual sympathy they have for each other and the authoritarian coincidences that unite them. It would be in Europe’s and Ukraine’s best interests to move to diplomacy and not appear as a warlike faction. However, it’s difficult to imagine Kiev giving up on their demands for a guarantee of non-aggression.
*Article originally published in La Razón de México.