ACCORDO TRUMP-PUTIN SU UCRAINA?
Sam Green
L’idea che Trump e Putin siano a ore o giorni di distanza dall’imporre un accordo all’Ucraina e all’Europa è fantastica. È vero, il cielo è considerevolmente più vicino alla terra rispetto a tre settimane fa, ma non è ancora caduto, e c’è tempo per agire. Nonostante l’evidente esuberanza di Trump post-chiamata Putin, Washington e Mosca restano molto distanti su ciò che comporterebbe anche un accordo minimamente accettabile.
Ecco l'articolo
The idea that Trump and Putin are hours or days away from imposing a settlement on Ukraine and Europe is fantastical. Yes, the sky is considerably closer to the ground than it was three weeks ago, but it hasn't fallen yet, and there is time to act.Despite Trump's evident post-Putin-call ebullience, Washington and Moscow remain miles apart on what even a minimally acceptable settlement would entail. Perhaps that's why Moscow's read-out of the call was considerably less enthusiastic.
For Putin, an acceptable deal would need to do four things:
1. Keep Ukraine out of NATO
2. Provide sanctions relief
3. Leave Russia in control of escalation
4. Neuter Europe
Keeping Ukraine out of NATO might be the one area where Trump can easily sign on. Although SecDef has partially walked back his ‘no-NATO’ statement, Trump has been reasonably clear on the topic, and this is one chip I’d expect to see him trade quickly. But it’s not enough.
Putin will want sanctions relief on finance, where Trump may deal, but mostly on hydrocarbons, where he won’t. POTUS is committed to maintaining high enough oil prices to incentivize investment in US fields, and to keeping Russian gas out of Europe, in order to sell US LNG.
Trump, meanwhile, has been unusually consistent on the need for European peacekeepers in Ukraine, which creates a problem for Putin. He needs a deal that ensures him of facing no consequence when (not if) he violates it. He doesn’t need the prospect of war with Europe.
Finally, the Kremlin is insisting on talks that would address the “underlying causes” of the war, by which it almost certainly means not the imperialist and autocratic nature of Putin’s regime, but Europe’s failure to acquiesce to a Yalta-esque re-division of the continent.
The White House, by contrast, takes a minimalist approach, simply wanting the fighting to stop. While the administration has already signaled a veto of Ukraine’s NATO accession, that in and of itself is unlikely to satisfy Putin. He will want a break on EU accession, too.
Remember, at the end of this day, this war isn’t about NATO. It’s about Europe:
The problem here for Trump is that he’s not in a position to give Putin what he wants, even if he’s minded to. No decision made in the White House will be binding on Europe, or even on the next US administration. And Putin knows that, too.
Which brings me to the key point in all of this: Putin isn’t interested in a rapid end to the war. His economy and political legitimacy are built on this war, and on conflict with the West more broadly. Pivoting away from that would be costly.
What Putin does want, however, is to lock the US into a lengthy political process that will (a) disincentivize further support for Ukraine, and (b) provide a smorgasbord of opportunities to extract interim concessions, all while leaving Russia free to keep fighting.
Putin, then, is betting that by enticing Trump to the table, he will be able to keep him there long enough to entrench Russia’s advantage on the battlefield and to push the Europeans into disengagement, after which he can get the deal he really wants. He may be right.
But Putin is also betting that the Europeans and the Ukrainians will be shell-shocked into abandoning their own agency in all of this. That’s where Putin ought to be wrong.
The reality Putin wants Europe to ignore is this: Neither Russia nor the US can set the terms on which European troops enter Ukraine, or even whether they enter Ukraine. That is a sovereign decision by the Ukrainians and the Europeans.
Europe and Kyiv thus have the opportunity to force their terms on Moscow and Washington, by designing and deploying a force that would create genuine deterrence against further Russian aggression.
There is not a lot of time to figure this out, but because talks between Washington and Moscow will inevitably drag on, there is some. The first step is to stop waiting for DC. If European powers want a secure and sovereign Ukraine, they can act to make that happen.
Washington, likely, won’t be happy, but if Trump intends for America to depart the field, he will have to contend with the fact that he has ceded power to those with greater resolve and proximity.
Victoria Nuland, if I recall, had some choice words for Brussels when the EU dithered in 2014. Now might be the time for Europe to return the sentiment.
