Ukraine scrambles to adjust to Trump

Donald Trump has said he can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.

So what? Not true. Not as things stand.

• Putin says he’s ready for peace talks “on the basis of the realities on the ground” – which include his occupation of 18 per cent of Ukraine.
• Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky says territorial concessions would be “unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all of Europe”.
• Hungary’s Viktor Orbán says the US is going “to get out of this war,” and “Europe can’t finance this war on its own,” and he may have a point.

Trump is likely to veto continued US military aid to Ukraine at current levels, and even if Europe stepped up aid dramatically to compensate it wouldn’t be enough to break the current deadlock.

Last call. Short of weapons and exhausted from manpower losses, Ukraine’s army is in a continuing stalemate with Russia’s. The Biden administration plans to rush billions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine before Trump enters the White House. That may or may not stabilise the front line. Either way, a counteroffensive is expected in the Kursk region by 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops.

Transition view. Trump has not revealed a Ukraine plan in detail but Vice President-elect JD Vance outlined it as follows:

• The frontline is frozen and an 800-mile demilitarised zone created.
• Ukraine doesn’t join Nato or other alliances.
• Germans “and other nations” fund Ukraine's reconstruction.

Mike Waltz, tipped as Trump’s national security adviser, supports Trump’s ideas and agrees Russia has to be stopped “before it draws Nato and therefore the US into war”. He also agrees Europe should take more responsibility for making this happen.

Brussels’ view. Europeans fear the war won’t stop in January, but US military aid will, leaving Russian forces in Donbas and the Crimea to wait for Ukraine’s remaining allies to weaken before resuming their offensive.

The EU has so far failed to give Ukraine what it needs to survive, let alone win. In principle that could change:

• At a heads-of-government meeting in Budapest last week France’s Emmanuel Macron said the question posed by Trump’s defence of US interests was “whether we are willing to defend the European interest”.
• “We have to be more masters of our destiny,” said Charles Michel, the new EU council president.
• In that spirit the EU is now scrambling for additional defence funds from €392 billion initially earmarked for reducing economic inequality between EU countries.

These funds can’t be used for direct military spending but could be spent on dual-use products like drones, which currently deliver most of Ukraine’s ordnance. In the meantime the EU is as heavily dependent on the US for its security as Ukraine is in its war against Russia.

Vicious circle. Since his re-election Trump has warned Putin against “escalation” in Ukraine, reminding him of the US’s military presence (100,000 personnel) in Europe. But herein lies a vulnerability for Europe and Ukraine.

• Trump’s advisers have indicated he may withdraw some of those US forces from Europe.
• Zelensky has offered to replace them with Ukrainian troops but who then would defend his eastern front?

“We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine,” a member of Trump’s team tells the WSJ. “And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”

Bottom line. Zelensky isn’t going to give up the occupied territories just as Putin is not going to stop there. “Russia is using ‘cannon fodder’ not for the sake of one or another village, but in order to force Europe to capitulate through the war in Ukraine and restore [Russia’s] hegemony in the region that existed after the Second World War,” Viktor Shlinchak of the World Policy Institute says.

What next? If the US cuts off military aid to Ukraine, Europe would have to double what it’s currently sending just to maintain the status quo. To change the outcome on the battlefield, the EU would have to fund a step change in weapons production and create a new unified defence capability to get them to Ukraine.

What’s more… So far, there’s no sign of either of these things happening.