America is no longer interested in underwriting Ukrainian and European security and it’s time for Britain to face this reality

Roland Oliphant

Senior Foreign Correspondent

12 February 2025

Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.

Since the invasion, that has been an American mantra – the promise not to indulge in Russia’s game of carving up third countries between the two superpowers.

Not any more.

In what Donald Trump called a “highly productive” phone call, he and Vladimir Putin “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately”.

If that is what happened, it is a great victory for Putin’s world view.

The Russian president has always believed that only those countries that decide the fate of others can be truly sovereign.

He has always been determined that Russia would be one of the great powers – along with the United States and China – qualified to carve the rest of the world up between them.

That is why he always wanted to talk to Washington, not Kyiv, about the fate of Ukraine. Anything else would be a humiliation.

Yet a victory for Putin’s ego is not the same as a victory in the war. At least, it does not have to be.

Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump’s secretary of defence, drew the outline of the US president’s vision of peace in blunt terms during Wednesday’s meeting with Nato defence ministers.

Occupied territory will not be given back to Ukraine, he said – implying a freeze along the current line of contact. Ukraine will receive neither Nato membership nor an Article Five security guarantee. And absolutely no US troops will be involved in the peace-keeping force.

That’s a grim deal that will reward Russia with stolen land and leave Ukraine vulnerable to a second attack in years to come.

Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine

said to have won.

Yes, at horrific cost and with an imperfect peace – but nonetheless, they will have won, and they will have a future.

Britain and the other allies who have stood with them since the invasion began will also be able to claim a part of that victory.

But there is a catch. As Mr Trump has made clear, and Mr Hegseth spelt out in language even a child could understand, America is not interested in underwriting either Ukrainian or European security.

So the shape of the peace will depend on Europe – and that includes Britain.

Sir Keir Starmer and his peers across the Channel must decide whether they want to choose the fate of their continent, or allow Moscow and Washington to do it for them.

It means massive investment in their armed forces and defence industries in order to deter a future Russian attack, not only on Ukraine, but on European Nato itself.

It will mean hard trade-offs and politically difficult spending decisions. But it is doable.

Ukraine has the largest, most battle-hardened and capable army in Europe.

If Britain and other allies live up to their word, they could mount a credible defence of the Continent from the Black Sea to the Barents and from Kharkiv to County Kerry (Ireland’s neutrality will also depend on that European deterrent working in the event of American retreat).

The alternative probably looks like this:

Putin would return to Ukraine in a few years, and take Kharkiv and Kyiv. He would then invade a Nato country, reassured that the alliance will not live up to its rhetoric of collective defence.

He would quite likely be proven correct.

Britain and Europe will then live in what Russian diplomats like to call “a new European security architecture”.

It will be a place where Putin’s view of the strong carving up the weak will hold sway.

There is no excuse for surprise here.

Mr Trump’s rhetoric has been consistent. The shift of American focus to the Pacific began under Barack Obama. American impatience with European freeloading predates even him.

American annoyance is now compounded by a thaw between Washington and Moscow. Mr Trump said that he and Putin had agreed to visit one another’s countries.

The cordon sanitaire Western countries threw around Moscow in a bid to isolate the Russian president is gaping open.

Outward unity was, until now, one of Nato’s greatest strengths. Less than an hour before Mr Hegseth’s address to the Ukraine Defence Contact Group – more than 50 allies co-ordinating aid to Kyiv – Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, offered a public warning about negotiating with Putin.

“We can easily brainstorm about the best way forward…but let’s not make him wiser than he is already,” Mr Rutte told a news conference.

Some in Nato will welcome the admissions made by Mr Hegseth on Ukraine, however.

German diplomats have long expressed scepticism about Ukraine taking back all of its land, not to mention the wisdom of Nato membership.

Volodymyr Zelensky has not been taken by surprise. He remarked the day before that he feared being cut out of American and Russian deliberations.

The war is not over yet. Mr Zelensky is a capable and highly motivated statesman who will use every opportunity to win the best deal for Ukraine that he can.

There is still much to play for, and the grim, inevitable rules of war mean that the fighting at the front will only intensify as a ceasefire looms closer.

Meanwhile, Britain and Europe must ask whether they to want to be at the table – or on the menu.

It is decision time.

…………

Also from the DT:

Benedict Smith US Reporter. 

Connor Stringer Deputy US Editor

“Volodymyr Zelensky’s polling numbers are “not great”, Donald Trump said as he suggested Ukraine will require an election when the war is over.  

The US president denied freezing Mr Zelensky out of the peace process but added, “at some point you need to have elections too”.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Mr Trump declined to say whether Ukraine is an equal part of negotiations saying instead that it must “make peace”. 

Mr Trump said he has agreed to “immediately” start negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, sparking fears of a favourable peace deal for Russia.

Mr Trump said he would visit Russia and invite Putin to Washington as part of efforts to break the deadlock and save “millions of lives”.

The US president said his first in-person meeting with Putin will be in Saudi Arabia in the “not too distant future”.