Humiliation and existential dilemma for Ukraine... and Europe

A plan supposedly cooked up by the White House and the Kremlin without either Ukraine or the European Union being heard or taken into account. A contempt equivalent to demanding practically unconditional surrender from Ukraine, but also from Europe, the main supporter of President Volodymyr Zelensky, insofar as Ukraine's eventual defeat would stimulate Russian President Vladimir Putin's appetites for other European countries, starting with those that managed to shake off his imperial tutelage. 

Almost four years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the reality on the ground is that an exhausted Ukraine is losing ground to the latest Russian offensives. Kiev has managed to hold its own thanks to American logistical aid and the steady supply of weapons from the United States and Europe, although always below the demands and expectations of Zelensky and his military leaders.

With very few exceptions, few have believed that Ukraine could ultimately win the war against Russia, despite the clear dent that the twenty waves of sanctions have made in the country's economy and even in the morale of the population, which is nevertheless subject to the pressure of a patriotic nationalism that harshly punishes any doubts about its own “legal” and “historical” superiority over its former Ukrainian comrades.

Trump, who has not yet managed to dispel many doubts on the Middle East horizon, is increasingly eager to focus his financial and military efforts on his confrontation with China for world leadership, so that the Russian-Ukrainian war of attrition distracts him excessively, even though he has achieved the invaluable victory of bending the Europeans to his will and getting them to agree to drastically cut back on their welfare state in order to invest in weapons and defense, which will inevitably detract from healthcare and pensions.

The core of the 28 points of the aforementioned peace plan is the enshrinement of the right of conquest, since Ukraine should definitively renounce the Crimean peninsula and the two provinces that make up the Donbass, Donetsk and Luhansk; Putin even demands that this renunciation also extend to Kherson and Zaporizhia, in short, an amputation of more than 20% of Ukrainian territory.

Likewise, Kyiv would have to abandon forever its aspiration to join NATO, and its armed forces could not exceed 600,000 members.

As Zelensky has aptly summarized, Ukraine has been faced with a diabolical dilemma: accept such a draconian ultimatum and lose its dignity, that is, the very essence of a people, or lose the supposed protection of its most powerful ally, the United States.

The terms of the choice are so pressing, and with such ethereal guarantees, that they constitute a terrible humiliation. It is true that Trump does not mince his words when it comes to making his demands, but the brutality with which he treats Zelensky, and by extension Ukraine, is not exactly an incitement to friendship and affection.

A major consequence of this situation is also the highlighting of Europe's weakness. Despite its latest decisions, the EU still fails to address the truly decisive issues needed to overcome the threats of its existential crisis: there are still many doubts about the construction of European giants in the defense industry, and it remains to be seen whether the definitive integration of the European single market in energy, connectivity, and financial markets will be achieved by 2028.

This would truly be the only way for the EU to shake off the sad image of a decadent and subordinate power to which Trump is decisively contributing.

And finally, the other decisive element in this controversial peace plan is missing: the opinion of Vladimir Putin himself, who would be the undisputed winner if the aforementioned peace plan were to come into force. For the moment, the Kremlin leader considers it only a “draft basis for negotiation.” In other words, he does not consider the territorial and institutional concessions that Trump is imposing on Zelensky to be sufficient. 

There is some truth in Putin's seemingly unshakeable position, and that is that he is probably not interested in ending this bloody war. Maintaining the conflict also guarantees that he will retain power through exceptional coercive measures, so that the longer he remains in power, the less Russians will discuss the country's internal problems and the more irreversible the measures that have turned Putin into a new and ruthless emulator of Stalin will become.