What I'm Reading: The Trump v Zelensky Edition
February 21: Five reads that piqued my interest this week
Russia surprised by Trump’s attacks on Zelensky
This week the mask fell and we saw Donald Trump’s frustration at not being able to extract Volodymyr Zelensky’s capitulation over a US-proposed deal that would essentially economically colonise Ukraine, spill over into the US President revealing whose side he is really taking in the Russia-Ukraine war.
MAGA wants payback for the billions in military aid sent by the Biden Administration.
When the Ukrainian President rejected what is widely viewed as extortion — a US deal that would give America the ability to plunder Ukraine’s natural resources and use its ports in an exchange worth $500 billion for the US, a frustrated US President let fly — accusing Ukraine of starting the war, calling Zelensky a dictator and pushed him to have elections.
Ukraine is under martial law. It cannot hold elections while bombs rain down on its cities, its men and women are on the frontlines and millions who are refugees have fled to corners around the world.
For context, Winston Churchill did not face an election until after VE Day and Britain did not have an election for a decade during the Second World War.
Decommissioning Zelensky is Vladimir Putin’s objective. Putin wants to conquer Ukraine and the easiest way to keep control of the former Soviet state is to have a puppet or supplicant government installed that would keep Ukraine out of the European Union and NATO.
Given that Zelensky has led his nation to fight back against the Russian invaders and firmly set out Ukraine’s future as being in Europe and not in the sphere of a modern-day Russian empire, it’s obvious why Putin would want an election.
Russia after all specialises in destabilising the politics of its neighbours, making a wartime poll ripe for a Russian interference operation that stressed and strained Ukrainian authorities would find it hard to combat given the country is physically fighting for its life.
Michael Nienaber and Sotiris Nikas report that even the Russians were taken aback by the ferocity of Trump’s attacks on Zelensky.
Even the Kremlin was caught by surprise over the harsh tone of Trump’s comments, which President Vladimir Putin hadn’t allowed himself to use. The criticism exceeded any expectations in Moscow that the US view of the war could be turned to Russia’s advantage, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
While Russian officials don’t fully understand Trump’s negotiation strategy and are wary of traps and unexpected twists, they have to make use of the chance to extract the maximum possible gains for Russia in any deal to end the conflict, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Germany could seek UK, French nuclear protection
As the above article noted, the reaction in Europe has been one of both shellshock and panic, with the United States’ security commitments to Europe in doubt.
Germany’s leaders, who are heading to a critical election this weekend, the result of which will shape and determine Europe’s future, are now contemplating the once inconceivable — asking Britain and France for the protection of their nuclear weapons.
More will be asked of the man poised to be the next German Chancellor — Friedrich Merz — than he could have imagined when first becoming CDU party leader.
And it is a challenge he appears to be ready to meet. He has told German television that the US abandonment of Europe means a radical rethink of security.
‘We must brace ourselves for the fact that Donald Trump will no longer unconditionally honour NATO's mutual defence commitment,’ conservative chancellor hopeful Friedrich Merz told German broadcaster ZDF on Friday.
Europe must ‘now make every effort to at least be able to defend the European continent on its own,’ he urged, as Trump's approach to Russia and its war in Ukraine has put transatlantic security ties into question.
The US president previously dropped hints that the US may no longer be committed to protecting other alliance members in case of an attack – an obligation under the organisation’s treaty.
Merz said on Friday that Germany would thus need to talk Europe’s two nuclear powers, France and the UK, about extending their deterrence umbrella to Germany.
‘That we have to talk to the British and French whether their nuclear protection could also be extended to us is an issue that the French government has repeatedly raised with the German government,’ Merz said, adding that such offers had ‘always remained unanswered’.
‘We must talk to each other about what that could look like,’ Merz added when asked whether he would change Germany's approach as chancellor.
‘Estimates that many Western leaders could envy’
Another of the false claims made by Trump about Zelensky was that he was polling at 4 per cent.
Keiv’s International Institute of Sociology has consistently polled these questions and it ran a survey after Trump’s false claim.
It found that support for Zelensky increased from 56 per cent to 63 per cent following Trump’s attacks.
Moreover, when the team asked Ukrainians about the qualities that President Zelensky possesses, a significant majority agreed that he embodies positive features: 74 per cent said that he is a patriot of Ukraine, 73 per cent believe that he is a smart and knowledgeable person, 60 per cent consider him honest and worthy of trust, and 65 per cent consider him a strong leader.
Estimates that many Western leaders could envy.
Trump’s ratings fall
Meanwhile two polls show Trump’s ratings falling, reminding that once again — it’s the economy stupid!
One reason for the erosion of support: a slight majority of respondents in both surveys said Trump has overstepped his presidential power in his attempts to reshape the federal government driven by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Many of Trump’s most controversial early initiatives, including a sweeping spending freeze, have been blocked in court thus far, but the new administration has still made waves with layoffs of federal workers, cuts to federal contracts and a flood of executive orders.
Those activities haven’t been popular, the new polling found. In the Post survey, for example, 58 per cent of respondents opposed laying off large numbers of federal workers. And Musk, Trump’s most high-profile adviser, is not getting good marks either: Just 34 per cent of respondents in the Post poll approved of Musk’s role in the federal government, while 54 per cent of respondents in the CNN poll said it was bad for Trump to have given the SpaceX CEO a prominent role in his administration.
Americans also remain sceptical of Trump’s handling of an issue the public has long said is among the most important: high prices. In the CNN survey, 62 per cent of respondents — including 47 percent of Republicans — said the president has not done enough to try to reduce the prices of everyday goods.
And tariffs, perhaps Trump’s signature economic issue so far, aren’t seen as a solution: 69 per cent of respondents in the Post poll said tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China would make products in the US more expensive.
History on grand bargains
My final read is this analysis by Benjamin Jensen at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies of how Trump’s attempts to strike a grand bargain, starting with Putin could end, in the context of such attempts throughout history.
He concludes that it’s extremely risky and optimistic to think a deal with Putin will end the Russian leader’s imperialist aims, or undermine the authoritarian axis of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
In all instances, while wars end and crises are averted, underlying struggles over power persist. Great powers have great interests and rarely are willing to sacrifice them even when they are exhausted by conflict. This means any grand bargain with Russia should be weighed both in terms of its short-term benefit and long-term risk. And while it is impossible to predict the generational impacts of grand bargains—would Kissinger still go to China in 1971 if he read about the Chinese Communist Party in 2025—it is possible to assess the opportunity costs and likely tradeoffs the latest grand bargain foretells.
First, land for peace is more likely to buy a temporary armistice than long-term stability. Territorial concessions at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, enshrined in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, sowed the seeds of future wars in Asia and the rise of a more militaristic Japan in the twentieth century.
Asking Ukraine to give up territory will gain favor in Moscow but at the cost of acerbating other territorial disputes in the Baltics and Caucasus. Furthermore, the Russian economy has become essentially a wartime economy, meaning an end to war is not an end to the business of war. As a result, even if Moscow gives security guarantees to Ukraine, which are backed by European troops, it won’t necessarily stop their agents from continuing hybrid attacks in Europe, global cyber operations targeting U.S. interests, and a sustained conventional military buildup.
For the grand bargain to work, Trump will have to trust that Putin won’t use the end of hostilities in Ukraine to accelerate rearming. In the worst case, Putin could wait until Trump’s presidency ends to launch a new war, potentially timed with a major Chinese action against Taiwan.
And that’s my list for this edition.
Please do send me anything that’s caught your eye, I enjoy knowing what you’ve been reading.
Some of you have started to offer me copies of your books etc. Please email me at latika@latikambourke.com for a forwarding address for hard copies.
Thanks again Latika. You might be interested in this article on how border / peace negotiations by great powers have always failed without the participation of the locals. See
https://johnmenadue.com/ukraine-isnt-invited-to-its-own-peace-talks-history-is-full-of-such-examples-and-the-results-are-devastating/
Given the way Russia is known to have interfered in the US elections the past three times, it is also extremely likely that they are geared up to interfere in the next election in Ukraine. Ukrainians cannot risk having an election in which Russia could put a Russian puppet at the head of their government again as they have in the past. They need a peaceful, stable country to ensure their elections are fair and transparent.