Kyiv
cnn
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US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine policy is a bit scattered and vague, and at times uninformed. But there is no doubt that it exists and seems to have become an unforeseen priority.
Trump’s policy on Ukraine is characterized by two elements in the first week of his administration.
The first is his persistent criticism of the economic damage that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is doing to Russia. Trump advocates for a peace agreement by telling Putin that he must agree for economic reasons.
This may misrepresent Putin’s apparent pathological commitment to victory, and the broad existential nature of the conflict for Moscow in the eyes of his propagandists. They see this as a war against all of NATO that they must win. Russian state media can turn the propaganda taps on and off. But Russia’s mentality is radicalized, while that of the West is not. For the Kremlin it is not a business of quarterly profits and losses, but of survival.
The second element is the regularity with which Trump is talking about the war after excluding it — and any mention of Ukraine and Russia — from his inauguration speech on Monday. On Thursday, he correctly suggested that a lower oil price could impede Russia’s ability to prosecute the war. Russia sells oil to China and India to keep its war machine running, despite sanctions aimed at reducing its revenues.
Trump said he would speak with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, whose forces are fighting Moscow now in Kursk. He also correctly suggested that Beijing has great influence over Moscow and could force a peace deal.
Once again, Trump is approaching the conflict from his comfort zone: one in which everyone is looking for a smooth deal that will make them richer.
China may seek calm and ultimately wish the conflict in Ukraine had never started. But that is not the current reality, and instead Xi Jinping is walking on fragile ground: watching his ally Moscow degrade its military and economy to the point of becoming Beijing’s junior partner, while realizing that Russia cannot lose the battle without impacting China’s global ambitions.
The calculations being made now by America’s adversaries have consequences for world order in the coming decade, not for the White House’s immediate phone book, nor for how quickly skillful people-to-people deals can end the largest land conflict in the world. Europe since the 1940s.
Trump’s repeated call for European NATO members to pay more for defense, an unlikely demand for 2% of GDP to be raised to 5%, has been echoed even by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
It is correct to say that this is Europe’s war. If Kyiv loses, Poland, the Baltics, Romania and Moldova will suffer the consequences, not Florida or California. Even NATO chief Mark Rutte has suggested that Europe could buy weapons for Ukraine from the United States. It was known that Trump was going to question the cost of the war for Washington, but Europe is quickly being cornered into stepping forward.
It’s also intriguing to see Trump talk about the damage the war has done. On Thursday he incorrectly said that millions of people had died on both sides. Kyiv has said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. The UN says some 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed.
Western officials claim that Russia’s losses regularly amount to 700,000 dead and wounded, and independent media outlets have tracked down nearly 100,000 public records suggesting Russian military deaths on the battlefield.
However, Trump’s incorrect and emotional reference to millions of people may be intended to evoke the urgency and horror of war in the minds of an American audience for whom it is a rarely talked about secondary topic.
Trump said he could bring peace to Ukraine in 24 hours, which was always a wild rhetorical exaggeration. Even the six months he’s talking about now are optimistic. But he has taken office with a hesitant but vivid understanding of the problems of war. He may falter, while little by little he realizes that an agreement is not easy and that his adversaries – because that is Putin, no matter how “great” Trump says they get along – are more patient, resistant and conniving than he.
However, his inaugural week has allayed Ukraine and its allies’ biggest fears that Trump preferred cordiality with Putin over NATO unity. Or that his wild, unrealistic campaign diplomacy promises would evaporate along with the war funding the moment he took office. All of this can continue to happen, and the path ahead for Trump is deeply complex and littered with rivals who have years more experience in the office, and much more to lose or win.
But Trump has owned it, has an emotional, if faltering, understanding of the horrors of war, and is critical of Putin, not fawning over him. This is another unforeseen twist in a conflict governed by the unexpected.
