Donald Trump did exactly what he promised to do. In the space of a ninety-minute phone call last week, he handed Ukraine on a platter to Vladimir Putin.
LONDON: What a disaster it was three years ago when President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to cross into Ukraine and start a full-scale invasion of the country. He was so sure that it would be over in a few weeks that he even ordered the troops to take with them their parade uniforms for the inevitable victory parade along the streets of Kyiv, telling them they would be showered with flowers and applauded by a grateful nation for rescuing them from the hated Nazi regime in power. Had the delusional Putin known that his misadventure would still be going on three years later, the big question, which probably will never be answered, is would he have given that order on 24 February 2022?
There were probably two factors present in Putin’s mind at the time which persuaded him to attack. The first was his belief in the mighty strength of his armed forces, no match for the meagre Ukrainian troops. The second was the feeble response by the West eight years earlier when on 20 February 2014 Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea. On that day, thousands of gun-toting men in unmarked uniforms appeared throughout the Ukrainian peninsular. Dubbed “little green men”, they took over Crimea all the while Putin was denying they were even there. The line from Moscow was that they were “local defence forces”, and it wasn’t until a year later that Putin unashamedly admitted they were actually Russian forces. Three weeks after the invasion, a hurried referendum on the future of Crimea was held across the peninsula in which Moscow claimed that 96.7 percent of the populations voted to join Russia.
The world knew that the election was a farce, but did very little in response. In fact, the West’s feeble reaction gave Vladimir Putin confidence that he could do almost anything without a significant international pushback. This was to have massive ramifications for the wider Ukraine, as there is little doubt that his success in Crimea emboldened Putin. Coupled with the limited western sanctions over Russia’s role in the shooting down of the Malaysian flight MH17, and President Barack Obama’s failure to respond militarily to Bashar Al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, Putin concluded that he could push the West further with little consequence.
How wrong he was. An avalanche of sanctions hit Russia from the first day of the invasion, with the Moscow stock
Then on 5 November last year, Putin’s luck changed. Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States and Vladimir was ecstatic, believing he had scored a diplomatic victory. Many believe that Putin now has someone over whom he has considerable leverage—that of “Kompromat”.
Donald Trump did exactly what he promised to do. In the space of a ninety-minute phone call last week, he handed Ukraine on a platter to Vladimir Putin. Champagne corks would have been heard flying all over the Kremlin in celebration. Historians have been comparing Trump’s feeble capitulation to that of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany in the Munich Agreement of 1938. By coincidence, on Friday world leaders had the opportunity to discuss this….at the Munich Security Conference!
A relieved Putin knows full well that on the battlefield Russia has fared much worse than expected. Since the initial surge and loss of territory, Ukraine has liberated approximately 75,000 sq km and launched limited excursions into Russian territory in the Kursk region, where it currently holds around 800 sq km. In contrast, Russia gained just 505 sq km in 2023 and around 4000 sq km in 2024, mainly through costly “human waves” tactics that have cost around 700,000 dead and wounded. Operations in 2024 alone were particularly deadly, producing more than 1,500 Russian casualties a day. But the greatest humiliation for Russia is that this putative great power with a population of 144 million has had to resort to importing North Korean troops to help liberate its own land of Kursk.
At sea, Russia has lost over one-third of its Black Sea Fleet, losses that military experts consider critical, rendering it incapable of fulfilling its operational functions. More than 50 percent of Russia’s amphibious ships have been destroyed or substantially damaged and Ukrainian ports are no longer blockaded. More than a year ago, the Kremlin decided to relocate most of its crucial ships from Crimea ports to Novorossiysk at the far east of the Black sea in order to shelter them from Ukrainian attacks. Russia’s maritime strategy is in disarray, effectively nullifying its dominance in the wider region.
In the air, Ukraine has successfully neutralised Russia’s air superiority, despite having significantly smaller air capabilities. According to UK intelligence, Russian air forces cannot operate in depth and lack a decisive operational effect because of Ukrainian air defence systems, an increased presence of Ukrainian air forces, effective long range strikes at critical Russian air force infrastructure and a new air dominance concept based on rapidly developing drones and UAV technology. As a result Russia has moved 90 percent of its warplanes beyond the 300km range of the US supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles, decreasing the frequency of Russian air strikes on Ukraine by as much as 75 percent.
Until Trump came along, things were going well for Ukraine. While Kyiv faces significant challenges, particularly manpower, it was not losing the war. Over the past year, Ukraine’s GDP has increased by 4.4 percent and there has been real household income growth, while inflation remains low. Since the middle of 2023, when Ukrainian drones had effectively neutralised Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, maritime routes have been open again, with Ukrainian exports up by 15 percent in 2024. According to the government in Kyiv, some 40 percent of the weapons Ukraine is using on the frontlines are now produced domestically, compared with hardly any in 2022. None of these changes take away from the extraordinary hardships of war, of course, but they have helped give Ukrainian society a form of adaptability and endurance that may not be fully visible to outsiders.
For its part, although Russia is making some forward movement in the eastern Donbas region, it’s so slow that experts have calculated that if Russia maintains the current rate, it will take 100 years to reach the western edge of Ukraine. Russia has a severe manpower problem and has had to rely on North Korea for support, as it has on China and Iran for technical supplies. For the past year, the only pathway to a Russian victory lay in undermining Western resolve and fostering the illusion of Russian strength. And, of course, the hope that Donald Trump would be re-elected.
For months, Ukraine’s President Zelensky has been on a charm offensive with Trump. He has offered him rare minerals, which Ukraine has in abundance; he has tried to show that Ukrainians are “winners” by launching a new wave of counter-offensive action in Kursk; and has pleaded that Trump talks to him before communicating with Putin. Trump duly ignored Zelensky and on Wednesday posted on his media platform ‘Truth Social’ that he had just had a “lengthy and highly productive” call with Putin; that they had agreed to stop the war; that they will very closely “work together”; and in due course they would “inform Zelensky of their conversation.” The unfortunate fact for the Ukrainian president is that Trump believes that “great men” who represent “great nations” get to call the shots, while lesser men (read Zelensky), who lead lesser nations (read Ukraine) get to suck it up. For a long time, commentators have speculated on why Trump seems to be so taken with strongmen and dictators. The simple answer is that Trump loves glamour, glitz and both power and trappings of power, something that strong men and dictators have in abundance.
Trump’s call with Putin blindsided and stunned World leaders, as coming out of nowhere. It’s not long ago that US presidents were describing Putin as a “murderous dictator”, rather than someone they will “visit and closely work together with.” Leaders were also dumbfounded by a person who boasts of being the world’s greatest deal maker, acting in such a naïve manner. At a stroke, Trump appears to have granted Putin his two major wars aim: annexing territories on his western border, and blocking Ukraine from NATO membership, without any concessions in return! But Putin wants more. He insists that any peace deal would require Ukraine not only give up land that Russia has captured, about 20 percent of the country, but also areas it has not occupied, including the city of Zaporizhzhia which has a population of more than half a million. Putin also wants more than land. He wants Ukraine to go back to the relationship it had with the Kremlin during the days when it was part of the Soviet Union. For that to happen, Ukraine would have to lose its independence and sovereignty.
With Donald Trump so desperate to be recognised as the great negotiator and leader who was the key to ending the Russo-Ukraine war, thereby claiming the Nobel Peace prize, there is an increasing possibility that any quick agreement will be seen by the world as nothing less than a stitch-up between a war criminal (Putin) and an indicted felon (Trump).