Change is in the air. But everyone is reacting in their own way. The EU leaders, for example, were so keen to congratulate Trump that made it look like a flip flop competition. Kiev also had to change gears. The most prudent in the Ukrainian establishment ran to pharmacy for sedatives. In Moscow, they have already dealt with Trump and characterize him as an unpredictable politician dependent on groups of influence. However, the Russian authorities do not reject a dialogue with him. Including on the Ukrainian conflict.
‘Peace Deal’. What we know about Trump's plans for Ukraine
During the election campaign, Trump handed out promises left and right, including on Ukraine. The Republican assured that he could stop the Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours by finding a solution that would suit both Moscow and Kiev. "We have a very good relationship (with Zelensky), and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin,” Trump told reporters.
At the end of October, the Financial Times, citing a long-term Trump adviser, said that his “blueprint could be a reimagining of the failed Minsk agreements” to solve the situation in Ukraine. This time “there are likely to be enforcement mechanisms with consequences for breaching the deal”.
Immediately after the election, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump said: “I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars” emphasizing that the United States had no wars during his previous four years as president.
By and large, Trump has not yet voiced any details on how he intends to contribute to the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. Trump's silence only fuels the interest of the Western media, which endlessly replicates "leaks" from anonymous sources.
The Wall Street Journal published a certain plan to end the Ukrainian conflict, which is allegedly being discussed by Trump's team. According to WSJ, it involves establishing a 1,300km “demilitarized zone” and blocking Ukraine’s NATO membership for 20 years. For its part the Unites States will not send its troops to police the demilitarized zone but pledges continued military aid to deter future conflicts.
Against the backdrop of rumors and speculation, Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt decided to clarify some of Trump’s plans. According to her, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will be able to "negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine" and “bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war on Day 1”. In general, like her boss, Leavitt did not say anything specific.
Meanwhile, CNN has already found leverage over Kiev in case it rejects the "peace deal". It is the Starlink satellite system owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX. As is known, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use the Starlink system for communication along the entire front line. Without it, the Ukrainian army will not be able to coordinate its actions.
CNN made its conclusions based on a report from the American portal Axios which reported that Elon Musk joined a call between US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. However, it would be premature to draw any conclusions from this.According to Axios, during the conversation, Musk promised continued Starlink access for Ukraine. It is important to understand that Musk is primarily a businessman, not a peacemaker. For him, Ukraine is more interesting as a ground for testing and advertising its technological innovations.
The U.S. media did not ignore the video that Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., shared on social media. The video showed footage of Trump's meeting with Zelensky. The caption to the video read: "You're 38 days from losing your allowance." It seems that Trump's son is the only one so far who decided to shed some light. However, it is unlikely that his opinion can be taken into account.
Trump's decision not to invite former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to his administration was also widely discussed. Again, certain conclusions were drawn. A few days earlier Pompeo criticized the Joe Biden administration for insufficient and belated assistance to Kiev. He also called for tougher sanctions against Russia, lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons and the launch of a $500 billion Lend-Lease program to Kiev.Therefore, the decision to leave Pompeo out was interpreted by the media and many pundits as Trump's disagreement with the position of the former Secretary of State on the issue of relations with Russia and Ukraine. Before that, Pompeo was tipped for the post of the Pentagon head, one of the key ones in the administration of the future U.S. president.
A conversation that didn't happen. What could Trump and Putin talk about?
Last week, in an interview to NBC President-elect Donald Trump said that Vladimir Putin wasn’t among the “probably” 70 phone conversations he has held with world leaders since winning the election, but that he still is planning to speak with the Russian president. "I think we’ll speak," he told NBC.
The sources of The Washington Post told it that Kiev was notified about the conversation between Trump and Putin and did not object to it. Ukraine reportedly realized that Trump planned to seek diplomatic solutions to the conflict.
The information about the conversation between Trump and Putin caused quite a stir, given the lack of high-level contacts between Moscow and Washington since February 2022. At the same time, everyone understands that it is impossible to resolve disagreements that can spill into a third world war without dialogue and direct contacts between the leaders of states.
However, the information published by The Washington Post turned out to be another hoax. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there was no conversation. “This has nothing to do with reality, it's a totally made-up story,” Peskov said. He called The Washington Post's article a vivid example of poor journalism in a high-brow media outlet.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Georgy Tikhy also commented on this story. “The reports claiming that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance about the alleged phone call are false. Accordingly, Ukraine could not favor or disfavor the phone call,” the diplomat said.
“Putin does not eat people.” Is Moscow ready for dialogue?
Moscow is open to dialogue with Trump. According to the Russian president, the Kremlin is ready to work with any US leader and the Russian side does not mind initiating a phone call with Trump.
Putin believes that Trump's calls to end the conflict in Ukraine and re-engage with Russia deserve attention.
However, Moscow has no illusions about it. It is fully aware of the fact that the scope of power of any US president will be limited by so-called influence groups or ‘donors’. According to Putin, despite his peaceful statements, Trump is bound by certain obligations. “He owes one way or another those people who helped him ascend to power,” TASS quotes the Russian leader as saying.
Putin believes that it is very important for the US president-elect to build contacts not only with these influence groups, the so-called deep state, but also with the population, the voters. And this is a very complex process.
“Jacques Chirac once told me: “What kind of democracy are we talking about there, in the United States? What democracy? If you don't have a billion dollars in your pocket, you cannot even dream of participating in elections. Those who give these billions have a say in the formation of the future team. And they can influence the people they delegated,” Putin said.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced Moscow's readiness for dialogue with Trump. However, he did not go into details. “During the election campaign, Trump said he planned to call Putin. Therefore, this readiness, this openness to dialogue remains, and yesterday it was reiterated by the Russian head of state... There are no specifics at the moment,” Dmitry Peskov said.
He expressed skepticism over the US president-elect's claims that he could end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours. "Certainly, there is nothing that could solve this problem so quickly," the Kremlin spokesman said. However, if the Trump administration starts seeking peace, rather than continuing the war, this administration will definitely be better than the Biden administration.
Giving his take on Trump, Peskov called him less predictable than Biden or Kamala Harris. “Everything is quite predictable with Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden, including the policy they will pursue until they leave the White House. Mr. Trump is less predictable in this regard. And it is not quite clear to which extent he will stick to the pledges he made during the election campaign,” Peskov said in a comment to journalist Pavel Zarubin.
At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman emphasized that Russia will watch the developments while focusing on its own agenda.
In a conversation with journalists, Peskov also commented on Harris’ statement that Putin would eat Trump for lunch. “Putin does not eat people,” Peskov noted ironically.
“Peace through strength.” Is it time for Kiev to start taking sedatives?
The mood in Kiev after Trump’s victory was shifting from one extreme to another. It was obvious which candidate the Ukrainian leadership was rooting for in the US election. Nevertheless, Zelensky instantly got his bearings, changed the blue flag to the red one, and was one of the first to congratulate Trump on his “impressive victory”.
"I appreciate President Trump's commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I hope that together we will make it a reality,” Zelensky said in his congratulations. He also expressed hope that under Trump's leadership, the United States would continue to support Ukraine.
This was followed by a telephone conversation between Zelensky and Trump that Musk joined. Following the conversation, Zelensky wrote on X: "I had a great conversation with President Trump, I congratulated him on his historic solid victory - his incredible campaign made this result possible. We agreed to maintain close contacts and develop our cooperation.”
Later at the EU summit in Budapest, Zelensky said that Trump did not voice his vision of ending the war in Ukraine during their conversation. He also rejected the possibility of achieving peace through territorial concessions and called on the West to provide more weapons, strengthen sanctions against Russia and direct frozen Russian assets to Kiev.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said that after Trump's victory, Kiev may experience “restrained optimism.” “There was another conversation between Zelensky and Trump. Our President gave an extremely positive assessment of it. All these things suggest that we can have restrained optimism about the development of events,” Denis Shmygal said.
It is worth noting that this was one of the most optimistic statements by the Ukrainian authorities. Later, former Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmitry Kuleba said: “There is going to be a lot of super infuriating statements. There are going to be many steps that will make us reach for sedatives and think that this is the end”. He spoke about Trump's future actions and statements regarding Ukraine.
But if Trump's actions should be expected only after the inauguration, Kiev has to deal with “super infuriating statements” already now. And it is not only Trump's statements, but also the ones of his children, advisers, “creditors” and even unconfirmed information from anonymous sources, which the U.S. media are full of.
Advisor of President Zelensky's chief of staff Sergei Leshchenko has already had to comment on both The Wall Street Journal's publication about Trump's plans to end the conflict in Ukraine and The Washington Post's fake news about a phone conversation between Trump and Putin. “We can see leaks to the press with reference to people in the president-elect's entourage. They give interviews, then those interviews are refuted. There's a lot of media noise. Now is the time for people who want to get into the new power, to make themselves known,” Sergei Leshchenko stated.
Kiev does not know yet how the new government will act. According to Sergei Leshchenko, Trump has his own vision of the situation in Ukraine. In this regard, Kiev hopes that Biden will give Ukraine all the promised assistance before Trump's inauguration.
Head of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Anatoly Kinakh has called for getting ready for a reduction in financial aid from the USA after Trump comes to power. He predicts that a significant part of arms will be supplied to Kiev not as gratuitous military aid.
Meanwhile, Kiev starts witnessing timid talk of peace with Russia. Against this background, an indirect dispute broke out between Head of the President's Office Andrei Yermak and Verkhovna Rada MP Yevgeny Shevchenko, TASS reported.
Thus, Shevchenko wrote in his Telegram channel that Zelensky should start peace talks with Russia, otherwise his Western partners will force him to leave. In response, Yermak expressed the opinion that “some MPs are confused” in understanding aspects of national security, as they allegedly equate “national interests with Ukraine's defeat”.
To this, Shevchenko reminded Yermak of the US attention to the Ukrainian issue. “Andrei, you should not further eliminate and poison the people's deputies of Ukraine. This will not be good for Ukraine. Your post is already being read in the United States,” Shevchenko wrote.
Earlier, Shevchenko in his Telegram channel called on Trump to help hold presidential election in Ukraine, otherwise “the authoritarian dictatorial regime will destroy Ukraine completely”. Opposition-minded Verkhovna Rada MP Aleksandr Dubinsky also wrote about Zelensky's resignation as a way to start negotiations.
Against the backdrop of such a nail-biting situation, Kiev began to look for someone to blame. Zelensky's office did not dare to take a swing at the United States, but European partners were under attack. Mikhail Podolyak, advisor to the head of Zelensky's office, explained clearly what was wrong with the current Europe. The essence of the claims is as follows. While Kiev has been “heroically resisting” for almost three years, fighting for the peace in Europe, the Europeans have wasted their time. They did not increase military expenses, did not increase the output of military industry. According to Podolyak, Europe did also little with sanctions against Russia. This happened because the EU did not prioritize Ukraine, but the interests of German exporters and owners of oil tankers in Greece.
Podolyak calls Trump's election victory “an expected shock for the EU”. But he immediately softens the wording. According to him, the Republicans allegedly seek to reduce the U.S. military presence “in favor of the shared responsibility of the world's democracies”. But the EU does not have this responsibility, since it has shifted the burden of defending its borders to the United States.
Outsourcing out! Has Europe decided to grow up?
The EU seemed to have hoped to the last minute that Trump would not return to the White House again. However, when they came to the realization that the next four years would have to be spent in the company of the unpredictable and probably vindictive Republican, the EU found nothing better than to arrange a volte-face championship.
“My warm congratulations go to Donald Trump after his electoral success,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media.
“Ready to work together as we did for four years,” French leader Emmanuel Macron reminded Trump of the past.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's message of congratulations, on the other hand, sounded more like a mockery of poor Germans being laid off from bankrupt German companies. “For many decades, Germany and the United States have been working side by side to promote prosperity and freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. Together with you, I want to continue this successful work for the benefit of our citizens,” Scholz wrote on social media X.
But the story did not end there. Polish journalists recalled Tusk's statement that Trump may have been recruited by Moscow. Donald Tusk has backtracked on his claim, saying he had never made such statements. It turned out that journalists had video recordings of Tusk's claims about Trump.
Meanwhile, the British newspaper The Times reported that Tusk is seeking an alliance to prevent a deal between Trump and Putin to settle the Ukrainian conflict. Apart from Poland, the UK and France are considered as members of the alliance. Germany is likely to be left behind because of its recent conflicts with Poland.
In general, Europe is talking more and more about the need to strengthen its autonomy and independence from the United States. Trump's victory contributes to this. The question is whether these talks will lead to concrete decisions. Or whether the purpose of such discussions is self-complacency and attempts to appear active.
"I think that our role here, in the European Union, is not to comment on Donald Trump’s election to see if it is good or not. He was elected by the American people, and he will defend the interests of the Americans. This is legitimate and a good thing. The question is whether we are ready to defend the interests of Europeans. In my view, this is a priority for us,” TASS cited French President Emmanuel Macron as saying at the European Political Community Summit in Budapest.
Emmanuel Macron emphasized that European interests should not be defended by either building transatlantic ties or abandoning alliances in favor of nationalism. The latter, he said, would not help to compete with China or the United States. The French president urged the summit participants to "wake up" in order "not to disappear in terms of geopolitics" and to work on increasing strategic autonomy at the national and European levels, especially in the energy sector.
Donald Tusk declared the end of the era of U.S. geopolitical dominance over Europe even before the U.S. election. "Harris or Trump? Some argue that the future of Europe depends on the American elections, while it depends first and foremost on us. Provided Europe finally grows up and believes in its own strength. Whatever the outcome, the era of geopolitical outsourcing is over," the Polish prime minister noted.
‘The world is changing very fast’. Where is this going?
It is obvious that political leaders in Europe are gradually coming to realize that dependence on the United States and its interests has brought nothing good to Europeans. The EU feared Trump's victory. It feared that with his return to the White House, the EU would have to take responsibility for the situation with Ukraine and face economic competition with the United States. It is time for Europeans to accept the fact that the Ukrainian conflict began under the Biden administration that dragged European elites into a proxy war with Russia, promising quick profits. Under Biden, Europe's economy began to come apart at the seams. It is time to thank the 46th president of the United States for exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas to Europe at fabulous prices and for the Inflation Reduction Act, which started the process of de-industrialization in Europe.
Paradoxically, Trump's victory may play into Europe's hands, becoming in a good way a bucket of cold water for it. The other question is whether Germany, France or Poland will have leaders capable of steering their countries away from self-destruction.
Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko shared some interesting thoughts in this regard. The head of state believes that Europe may become the key rival for the United States in the future. Lukashenko is convinced that the USA will keep pressuring Europe because the USA does not need competition. “They live off it. If Europe and the euro rise, then the U.S. dollar will be out of business. People in the European Union have already started to understand it,” the Belarusian leader said.
“The world is changing very fast. We make plans bearing in mind today’s world situation. The situation will be totally different tomorrow. They [the leaders of the EU member states] will certainly stand up for their own countries, for Europe. In that situation China may not become the key rival for America but Europeans may,” the head of state believes.
He also remarked that the Global South is rising and the Indian economy is growing at a very rapid pace. “New circumstances may emerge literally some time later. They [the USA] will need to respond to it. You and I contemplate things from today’s perspective. Tomorrow we will contemplate things bearing in mind changes of the situation. It is changing right in front of our eyes,” the president stated.
The president expects Donald Trump to take care of global matters and to try to make a contribution to the resolution of the problems that have piled up. “After all, I still hope that something will change. There is another minor detail. A human one. It is one thing when people in power do not have experience. It is a catastrophe when they do not have kids. Then they totally do not care what is going on in the world. Trump has a large family. He has kids. Trump has Melania [Trump] to keep him in check. This is why it is a big thing that he has a family and kids. He thinks not only about his own future but also about the future of the kids,” the head of state summarized.
By Vita Khanatayeva
BelTA
Photos courtesy of TASS, Unsplash, AP Photo
