Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Credit: Reuters File Photo
The main outcome of the four-and-a-half hour talks in Riyadh on February 18 is that the repair of the battered United States-Russia ties has seriously begun. Full credit goes to US President Donald Trump. The quintessential dealmaker realises that you cannot waltz and bark orders at each other. And the Russians couldn’t agree more. This is the main thing.
However, as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov put it, “We trust ourselves. In order to say if we trust the Americans or not, we need to go a long way. We’ll have to develop measures to restore and strengthen mutual trust. We’ll have to take numerous small steps towards each other, which will help create and restore the atmosphere of trust. Much damage was done in the past four years and much was destroyed. It’s impossible to rebuild it all in an instant. We have a lot to do.” Thus, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that full-fledged Russia-US talks are set for this week to address obstacles in the operation of diplomatic missions. Already, in an important confidence-building measure, the US voted with Russia for the first time on Monday to push back a Ukrainian resolution in the United Nations critical of Moscow, which had the backing of Washington’s European allies.
Europeans say moralistically that the waltz is vulgar and sinful. But such paranoia stemming out of Russophobia only drove them to kickstart the war. Europeans are in big disarray following Trump’s outreach to the Kremlin, running around like headless chicken. Why did it have to be so? The problem lies with their outsourcing of strategic thinking. Europeans are hopelessly lost in a world in which strategic thinking counts — making sacrifices, thinking ahead, having a strategy for second-best outcomes, and one for retreat and defeat.
Yet, French President Emmanuel Macron’s hurried visit to the White House on Monday showed no remorse over his country’s wrecking the Minsk Accords which had offered special status for Donbass within Ukraine. That was a turning point. Macron’s preoccupation now is to pull aside Trump or claim a place for himself at the high table. Vanity and hypocrisy are hallmarks of French diplomacy.
From Trump’s restrained remarks at the press conference with Macron, he won’t be distracted. Trump is unwavering that the key to ending the war lies in restoring normalcy in US-Russia ties. He envisages a strong partnership with Russia which has massive mineral resources, which of course will also serve his America First doctrine.
However, Europeans in their desperation are not giving up. The European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen tried hard for an appointment, but Trump declined, presumably because she was a favourite of former US President Joe Biden and a hardcore Russophobe. Polish President Andrzej Duda was kept in an ante-room waiting for over an hour for a 10-minute chat with Trump.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is the next in line to meet Trump on Thursday. In a riveting piece, the Political Editor of Observer (Sunday edition of Guardian) Toby Helm wrote that much tutoring is going on in 10 Downing Street “to choose his words carefully at this week’s crucial White House meeting.” Starmer is being advised by the foreign office “to be very clear on his main points and, above all, to be brief… (as) Trump gets bored very easily. When he loses interest and thinks someone is being boring, he just tunes out. He doesn’t like Macron partly because Macron talks too much and tries to lecture him.”
Meanwhile, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, a billionaire businessman, is assuming a hands-on role. On Trump’s instructions, Witkoff flew into Moscow and had a three-and-a-half hour closed-door discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which subsequently morphed into the first meeting in Riyadh between American and Russian officials.
Witkoff suggested in an interview on Sunday with CNN’s State of the Union that the war in Ukraine wasn’t provoked by the Kremlin. In his words, “The war didn’t need to happen. It was provoked. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was provoked by the Russians. There were all kinds of conversations back then about Ukraine joining NATO. That didn’t need to happen. It basically became a threat to the Russians.” A couple of days earlier, Trump himself had said much the same thing to Fox News Radio.
So, what next? Things look deceptively simple, but that’s because Trump habitually chews his meat loaf all the way once he takes the bite. The difficult part was to avoid entrapment in the Biden narrative of the war. But unlike the first term, Trump is now getting access to unvarnished intelligence. The purge at the CIA and Pentagon, control over the FBI, DOGE’s ‘truth dig’ — all this adds up. The deep state is on the back foot. Again, the British establishment is kept in the doghouse. MI6 agents had played a seminal role in hatching the ‘Russia collusion’ plot against Trump that had hobbled his presidency.
Trump is making sure the Democrats won’t easily get out of the foxhole, which in turn deprives the deep state of political cover. The prestigious HARVARD CAPS / HARRIS POLL, just released, shows that Democratic Party approval hits a record low at 36 per cent. About 72 per cent support the existence of DOGE, and 72 per cent also say they want Ukraine to negotiate a settlement with Russia while 60 per cent favour direct US-Russia negotiations.
M K Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.