Europe isn’t the real threat to Ukraine peace but UK

Meanwhile, Kiev typically launched an attack in the Kursk region on the eve of the Ramstein Format event as the “curtain-raiser”. The operation, although played up in the British press, is spearheaded by just 2 tanks and fifteen armoured carriers and will no doubt be crushed by the Russian drones and its highly lethal Ka high-performance combat helicopters with day and night capability, high survivability and fire power. 

Typically, Zelensky won’t give up on any occasion for grandstanding in front of Western audience. He hopes to display on Thursday that there is still some spunk left in the Ukrainian armed forces. Tragically, he is sacrificing a few dozen Ukrainian soldiers in this melodrama which may distract some attention from the front-line as Russian forces have entered Chasiv Yar and reached the suburbs of Pokrovsk in an operation to surround that city. 

With the fall of Chasiv Yar and Pokorovsk, the Battle of Donbass is nearing home stretch. It sets the stage for a massive Russian push to the Dnieper River if the Kremlin is left with no other option but to end the war on its terms.   (See a recent article on the future map of Ukraine by the top Moscow strategic analyst Dmitry Trenin titled What Ukraine should look like after Russia’s victory.)

Indeed, the hopes of Donald Trump bringing the war to an end in the first day of his presidency on January 20 have withered away. The Ramstein meeting is a defiant act by Zelensky and his European associates, as Trump is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon.  

On December 18, Zelensky met in Brussels with NATO chief Mark Rutte and huddled with several European leaders to discuss war strategy. His European interlocutors are also seeking to develop their own plans if Trump, who has pledged to bring a swift end to the war, pulls the plug on the Kiev regime or forces it to make concessions. 

The key topic of the Brussels meeting was security guarantees, Zelensky’s office said. Zelensky highlighted his “detailed one-on-one discussion” with French President Emmanuel Macron that focused on priorities to further strengthen Ukraine’s position “regarding the presence of forces in Ukraine that could contribute to stabilising the path to peace.”

Prior to the Brussels meeting, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters that the priority was to secure the “sovereignty of Ukraine and that it will not be forced to submit to a dictated peace.” But, he cautioned, any discussion of boots on the ground would be premature. 

Rutte himself counselled that Kiev’s allies should focus on ramping up arms supplies to ensure Ukraine is in a position of strength. Rutte estimated that Ukraine needs 19 additional  air-defence systems to protect the country’s energy infrastructure. 

Interestingly, Rutte announced that the proposed new NATO command in the German city of Wiesbaden is now “up and running” which will henceforth coordinate Western military aid for Ukraine as well as provide training for Ukraine’s military. Trump is unlikely to preserve the Ramstein Format. 

Simply put, Europe, including the U.K., lack the capacity to replace the US military assistance to Ukraine. For the EU to replace the US, it would need to double its military aid to Ukraine. But the current political situation in Europe, along with the real military capabilities of individual European countries, makes this an impossible objective. (See an analysis, here, by Samantha de Bendern at the Chatham House.) 

Germany, Europe’s largest military donor to Ukraine, has plunged into political chaos with the collapse of the Scholz-led coalition. Macron, a staunch defender of Ukraine, has lost control over France’s domestic politics since the June parliamentary elections, where he lost his majority. Elsewhere in Europe, political parties on the far right and far left, with pro-Russian sympathies, are rising.  

Europeans are running around like headless chicken. The surprise visit of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Florida to meet Trump and watch a movie with him at this critical juncture of the Ukraine war shows that the smart lady has no confidence in the likes of Macron. 

Meloni has a warm equation with Trump’s close aide Elon Musk and is seeking to strengthen business ties with the US. “This is very exciting. I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd and added expansively, “She’s really taken Europe by storm.” 

Italy, an important NATO power that overlooks the Mediterranean  is a vociferous supporter of trans-atlanticism, and pursues a nuanced policy on the Ukraine war that may be of use to Trump to build bridges with Europe. Meloni is positioning herself. 

Italy resolutely condemned the Russian annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s subsequent involvement in Eastern Ukraine and joined the EU sanctions against Russia. It demonstrated its military support for Ukraine with significant military aid packages within the framework of an agreement on security cooperation (under previous government headed by Prime Minister Mario Draghi). 

That said, Rome has often sought to balance EU responses with its national interests towards Russia. Thus, Meloni’s foreign minister reaffirmed recently, even as Biden authorised Ukraine to deploy long-range American missiles against military targets inside Russia, “Our position on Ukraine’s use of (Italian) weapons has not changed. They can only be used within Ukrainian territory.” 

In the final analysis, it is the course of the war that will decide the terms of peace in Ukraine. Europe’s swing toward right-wing governments — Austria is the latest example — may help Russia. However, the crux of the matter is that so long as the spy agencies of Britain and US work in tandem to manipulate the governments in power in White Hall — Labour and Conservative alike — the Trump administration has a serious problem on its hands. 

Of course, Trump is well aware of the UK’s pivotal role in hatching the “Russia collusion” plot, which hobbled his presidency. Downsizing Britain’s role can be a game changer for peace in Ukraine. 

But the MI6’s capacity to influence the Kiev regime is not to be underestimated. Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson played a seminal role in torpedoing the Russia-Ukraine deal negotiated at the peace talks hosted by Turkey in March-April 2022 just weeks into the conflict. Even if Trump strikes a deal with Putin, which in itself is highly problematic as things stand, London is sure to undermine it one way or another at the first available opportunity, given its Russophobic obsession with inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.  

Possibly, Trump is savouring Elon Musk’s relentless assault on the British government. “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government,” Musk wrote on X. But British politicians have the skin of rhino. Sir Keir Starmer is giving as good as he gets. Trump’s challenge lies in mothballing the special relationship with the UK.