By P.K.Balachandran
Colombo, November 13: Russian foreign policy experts are broadly appreciative of US President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements. But they have grave doubts about his ability to get Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to sit across a table and thrash out a mutually acceptable way of ending the war.
Russian experts writing in Russia Today website find Trump’s approach to the Ukraine question to be based on simplistic notions and not on a good understanding of the deep-rooted sentiments among Ukrainians about independence from Russia. Also, Trump has not grasped the Russia’s well-founded fears about Europe and NATO using Ukraine against it.
In fact, one of the experts even hinted that the only way Trump can bring an end to the war is by bringing about a regime change in Ukraine to bring in a leader who is amenable to giving Russia the concessions it expects to ensure its security.
Appreciating the general drift of Trump’s foreign policy, Fyodor Lukyanov says: “Trump stands for a change in positioning. Instead of global dominance, there will be a vigorous defence of specific American interests. Priority will be given to those that bring clear benefits, not in the long term, but now.”
Lukyanov goes further and says that Trump’s belief in the primacy of domestic over foreign policy, which has always characterized Trump’s supporters and has now spread throughout the Republican Party, means that his choice of international issues is going to be selective and restricted.
“Preserving the moral and political hegemony of the US is not an end in itself, but a tool. In such a system of priorities, the Ukrainian project loses the destiny it has in the eyes of the adherents of the liberal order. It becomes a pawn in a larger game,” Lukyanov points out.
Another peculiarity he sees in Trump, is that the President-elect doesn’t see war as an acceptable tool. “Yes, Trump will use hard bargaining, muscle-flexing and coercive pressure (as practiced in his usual business), but not destructive armed conflict, because that is irrational.”
Lukyanov looks at Trump’s previous term and notices his refreshing approach to regional conflicts. One was the ‘Abraham Accords’, an agreement that facilitated formal relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries. The second was the meetings with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, including a full-fledged summit in Hanoi.
“The first was the result of shuttle diplomacy by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The powerful financial interests of America, the Gulf monarchies and Israel led to a series of shady political deals. The current situation in the region is many times worse than it was then, but it cannot be said that the arrangements (the Abraham Accords) have collapsed. The framework is still in place,” Lukyanov asserts.
However, that Middle Eastern settlement model may not be applicable to the situation in the Ukraine conflict, where the warring parties are fighting for their very existence and where room for manoeuvre is more limited.
Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that Trump has thrown open a window of opportunity for Russia and Ukraine to explore solutions so that the extremely destructive war is brought to an end, Lukyanov says.
But a leading Russian columnist on military affairs, Mikhail Khodarenok, is less sanguine. He is convinced that Trump’s reported Ukraine peace plan is doomed to fail.
Khodarenok quotes Wall Street Journal to say that Trump envisages a suspension of military operations along the front line, the creation of a demilitarized zone (DMZ), a guarantee that Ukraine won’t join NATO for at least 20 years, and the West continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Wall Street Journal further says that Trump’s promise to end the war by January’s Inauguration Day puts him in the position of having to choose between competing proposals from his advisers, though all advisors are agreed on one basic point, that Joe Biden’s plans to transfer arms and military equipment to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” should be rejected outright.
Khodarenok recalls that throughout his election campaign, Trump had sharply criticized Biden’s handling of Ukraine, warning that it had brought the world closer to World War III, and that Ukraine had cheated the US out of billions of dollars in free weapons.
According to Wall Street Journal Trump has not yet approved the final plan for resolving the conflict. He intends to continue discussing it with his closest advisers, the paper said.
It is not clear what the de-militarized Zone (DMZ) would look like. Does it cover all the regions taken by Russia including the Crimean Peninsula? And if the classic definition of a DMZ is applied, military facilities on it must be removed, and the deployment of armed forces, the fortification of the terrain, and the conduct of combat and operational training activities on it are prohibited.
According to the purported plan, the US will continue to supply Ukraine with arms and other military equipment. The US has promised this only to keep the Russians in check and prevent them from swiftly moving in and taking over all of Ukraine
In all likelihood, Ukraine will reject this package, Khodarenok says.
Maintaining the security regime in the DMZ will require, among other things, the presence of a contingent of peacekeepers (if only to separate the parties’ forces). But since the US will not put its boots on the ground, its European allies may have to contribute units.
Then, there is the question of Russia being allowed to keep (for ever), the territories it captured. Also, the role of NATO has to be restricted. According to Wall Street Journal, Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO for the next 20 years.
Khodarenok wonders if such an assurance can be extracted from Ukraine when it is mortally afraid of Russia. And what is the sanctity of a 20-year bar on entering NATO, he asks.
The Russian expert says the Ukrainian leadership will be the main stumbling block on the road to peace, as they completely and “insanely” believe that there is only one way to keep the Russians away, and that is to defeat them militarily. But Ukraine lacks the means to do so.
According to the expert, the only way in which Trump can move forward on Ukraine is to install in Kiev a new leadership capable of fulfilling his peace plan. The leadership should be reasonable, only then will negotiations be possible, Khodarenok says. In other words, Trump US must bring a regime change in Ukraine as part of the peace process.
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