Making Putin happy again

Since Donald Trump’s call with Vladimir Putin on 12 February and a series of other diplomatic moves aimed at kicking off Russia–Ukraine peace talks, the war in Ukraine has returned to the top of the international media agenda.

For outsiders, observing the war from a safe distance like an increasingly monotonous TV series, the plot has acquired finally a new turn, reviving flagging interest and sparking intense debate. But for Ukrainians, Trump’s ‘peacemaking’ initiatives are just another reminder of their subaltern, ‘pawn’ role on the geopolitical chessboard.

The writing was already on the wall after Trump suggested that Ukraine ‘may be Russian someday’ (a reason to exploit Ukrainian rare earth minerals in advance); after vice president JD Vance insisted that ‘this war is between Russia and Ukraine’ (and that US military interference would not ‘advance American interests and security’); and after defence secretary Pete Hegseth stated that Ukraine should abandon its push to reclaim all Russian-occupied territory and forget about joining NATO.

To add insult to injury, the US responded to Volodymyr Zelensky’s earlier offer of privileged access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in return for support with a virtually colonial demand for almost everything for almost nothing in return. The Daily Telegraph, which obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, called it ‘a new Versailles’: ‘If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would amount to a higher share of Ukrainian GDP than reparations imposed on Germany at the Versailles Treaty.’

Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich, February 14, 2025. Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Normally, the paper pointed out, such terms are imposed on aggressor states defeated in war. But Trump ‘seems willing to let Russia of the hook entirely’. Besides the purely economic issues, there was also the moral question whether it would be ‘honourable to treat a victim nation in this fashion after it has held the battle line for the liberal democracies at enormous sacrifice for three years. Who really has a debt to whom, may one ask?’

Trump’s fantasy $500bn

The US contract seems to have been written by private lawyers rather than the US Department of State or Commerce. It requires, according to the leaked document, a $500bn ‘payback’ from Ukraine that goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals, to cover ports, infrastructure, deposits of oil and gas, and other resources. It is very unlikely that Ukraine will be able to pay $500bn in any foreseeable future, but there is even more daunting issue that the contract fails to address: security guarantees for Ukraine. This was the last straw for Zelensky, who cancelled the agreement despite heavy US pressure bordering on blackmail.

Ukrainians’ concerns with security are hardly exaggerated. On the one side, they are faced with a rogue state that violates all possible rules and laws, and that cannot be trusted, whatever its leaders may say or sign. On the other side, they have wavering western partners with lofty ideals but ambiguous practices and very long records of avoidance and betrayal, of searching for excuses instead of solutions. Ukrainians remember quite well that neither the United States nor the UK lived up to their obligations to protect Ukraine under the 1994 Budapest agreement, signed when Ukraine gave up the Soviet nuclear weapons on its territory. According to the New York Times, the expansiveness of the latest US proposal, and the tense negotiations around it, ‘demonstrate the widening chasm between Kyiv and Washington over both continued US support and a potential end to the war. For many, Trump’s offer reeks of colonialism, an era when western countries exploited smaller or weaker nations for commodities.’

Equally upsetting are Trump’s manipulations of figures. ‘Every time Zelenskyy comes to the United States, he walks away with $100 billion. I think he’s the greatest salesman on Earth’, Trump (in)famously said last September, forgetting to mention that for half a year his own party had been blocking a much smaller sum of aid allocated to Ukraine by the Biden government. Now, he claims that the US has spent $300bn on the war so far, and that it would be ‘stupid’ to hand over any more. In fact, experts maintain that the five packages so far agreed by Congress have totalled $175bn, of which $70bn was spent in the US on weapons production. Some of it is in the form of humanitarian grants, but much of it is lend-lease money that must be repaid.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which runs a database on all types of assistance provided by various countries to Ukraine, provides even more sobering figures: US aid to Ukraine actually delivered by December 2024 totalled $114.2bn, compared to the $132.3bn delivered by European nations. While US aid indeed exceeds all other nations in terms of military, financial and humanitarian allocations, these allocations make up only 0.5% of American GDP, while a number of European countries allocate up two per cent of their GDP to help Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute, ‘the effective cost to Europeans has in fact been far higher, since sanctions on Russia mattered far more to European economies than to the US economy’.

It is also worth noting, as Timothy Snyder does, that ‘in general, the weapons the US has sent to Ukraine were obsolescent and would have been destroyed, at costs to the US taxpayer, without ever being used … In resisting Russia, Ukraine has also provided tremendous economic and security benefits to the United States. What the United States has learned from Ukrainians about modern warfare – and that is just one of many benefits – easily justifies the costs, even in the most narrow security terms.’

A new Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s ‘peacemaking’ initiatives were met in Ukraine with a mixture of anger, despair and black humour. Zelensky cancelled his visit to Saudi Arabia, scheduled for 20 February, two days after the Rubio–Lavrov meeting in Riyadh. He stated openly that he did not want to legitimize that meeting and its ‘decisions’. The fact that he was not invited to these talks, nor even consulted by the American partners beforehand, does not bode well for Ukraine’s eventual role in ‘big boys’ conversation. As an old saying goes, ‘if you are not at the table then you are on the menu’.

While Zelensky tries to keep a brave face in bad game, Ukrainian media are overwhelmed with sarcasm, metaphors (the copulation of a frog with a snake might be the most graphic) and caustic cartoons. One of them – featuring Trump as a bride and Putin as a groom – bore a striking resemblance to cartoons showing a newly-wed Hitler and Stalin in 1939. As a Ukrainian publicist put it succinctly: ‘It’s not Munich 2.0. It’s more like a new Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.’ ‘We are entering a difficult, surreal state’, declared Olga Rudenko, the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent. ‘Our key ally, led by Donald Trump’s new administration, is turning against us and siding with our enemy.’

But the danger of Trump’s reckless cowboy diplomacy goes far beyond the fate of just Ukraine. His susceptibility to Putin’s arguments (partly because of ignorance, partly because of affinity) threaten the whole European continent if not the global order as a whole. After Vance’s speech in Munich and Trump’s arrogant and nonsensical statements the day after, Europeans can no longer neglect a responsibility that they have habitually outsourced to American partners. How far and how effectively this motley crew of thirty-plus nations will move remains to be seen. But at least it gives Ukraine a chance to survive in the new environment, even though it would require even more painful efforts – both diplomatic and military. So far, the Ukrainians have not blinked – as both Zelensky’s and society’s reaction to the mounting challenges indicate.

The dictatorial mindset

The only country that clearly benefits from Trump’s ‘peacemaking’ is Russia. Regardless of the ultimate results, the very fact that a US leader engaged in diplomacy with an indicted war criminal, a dictator waging a genocidal war of aggression against a peaceful sovereign neighbour, conveys a huge symbolical meaning. Little surprise that Trump’s curtsy to Putin was celebrated in Moscow like ‘Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s all rolled into one’.

Putin has certainly scored several points over Trump, besides the paramount fact of breaking the international isolation. First, he has learned that, without having had to make any concessions, American peacekeeping troops will not be sent to Ukraine – the same gift that Biden made him in December 2021, completely ignoring the importance of strategic uncertainty in geopolitical rivalry. Second, again with no concessions, the American president gave the nod to Putin’s claims to the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to his demand that Ukraine be barred from NATO. Third, he heard not only that American sanctions would be removed, but also that the US president believes Europeans should do the same. Finally, Putin placed the whole set of fraudulent Kremlin narratives in Trump’s gullible head, ranging from the outrageous claim that Ukraine shares equal responsibility with Russia for the ongoing war, to casting Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy into doubt and demanding war-time elections, even though Ukraine’s constitution explicitly prohibits this.

Trump claimed Zelensky’s popularity had declined to a meagre 4%. No one could have provided him such an odd data except for the Russians, of course. But he has a team that could have easily checked it. There are several national and international pollster companies that operate in Ukraine. None of them placed Zelensky’s popularity below 50%. Popular trust has indeed fallen from 90% in May 2022 to 60% last year, but stays firmly at 50+ points; the latest poll (at the beginning of February) indicates 57%. Ukrainians might be critical of Zelensky and many will probably not vote for him after the war, but they do not want the Russians or the Americans to undermine the legitimacy of their democratically elected president. In all opinion surveys, an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians oppose elections in war time, being perfectly aware that they wouldn’t benefit anybody but Moscow.

Ignorance about Ukraine and the region in general is something that Trump shares with most international politicians and intellectuals educated in the framework of Russian ‘imperial knowledge’, which is normalized in both international academia and popular culture. A much bigger problem, however, is Trump’s mindset, which has little to do with rule of law and liberal democracy and a lot with the realpolitik favoured by dictators confident that might makes right, and that international politics is primarily about accumulation of power and wealth. Ignorance can be enlightened and mitigated, but cynical authoritarianism is very unlikely to change. This means that moralistic discussions with Trump and his lieutenants will not help Volodymyr Zelensky and his European partners. Instead, they must speak from a position of strength. This is perhaps the only point on which they fully agree with the American president.

An earlier version of this article was first published in RAAM