Kiev, Ukraine – The United States seems to have reportedly secured “very good protection” from Ukraine thanks to unmatched support from European leaders.
Donald Trump, president of the United States, sat next to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven European helmsmen, and promised to give them “very good protection and very good security.”
Following the Trump-hosted summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which ended in a ceasefire, the meeting took place.
How will the Western aegis collectively guard Kyiv from a new round of hostilities and help it negotiate a peace deal with Moscow?
The actual outcome of the gathering on Monday is skepticism from a Ukrainian military analyst.
Lt. Gen Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, stated to Al Jazeera, “No decision has been made from the standpoint of security guarantees, the supply of arms, and]the deployment of Western] troops.
No “direct conflict” with Russia
According to Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank, the security guarantees are vague, unclear, and most likely to be “relative.”
He claimed it’s “hardly ever possible” to negotiate a mutual aid agreement between Washington and Brussels, which guarantees their immediate military intervention in the event that Russia attacks Ukraine.
Because of the nuclear weapons being discussed, Americans and Europeans will avoid the possibility of a direct military conflict with Russia, he said.
A Trump-backed agreement that removes the fiscal strain of US taxpayers from US taxpayers, gives US arms manufacturers substantial profits, and lets Europe foot the bill make up the difference, could provide the guarantees.
Zelenskyy stated that he consented to Europe paying for and completing years’ worth of $100 billion worth of US-made weapons.
Berlin has already agreed to contribute $500 billion to the defense industry for military equipment and munitions. The new system has been dubbed PURL, the Prioritized Ukraine’s Requirements List.
Unacceptable deployment
A European peacekeeping force that could serve as a containment factor might be sent to Ukraine, according to Fesenko, which would be a “symbolic guarantee.”
Russia, he continued, “is blatantly opposed to it, and that would cause problems in future discussions.”
Moscow reacted to the idea, calling it the “reanimation of an obviously unviable idea” that was “categorically unacceptable” in any way, according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.
According to Fesenko, Kyiv’s strategic partnership agreement with Washington, which is modeled after similar agreements with South Korea and Egypt, might be a guarantee.
This time, Trump appears to have warmed up to the Ukrainian leader, unlike the February debacle at the White House, where Trump and his vice president JD Vance insulted Zelenskyy for being “ungrateful” and briefly halted US military aid.
According to Fesenko, “the White House desired an agreement, constructive decisions.”
Zelenskyy also altered his attitude toward Trump, opting instead for his customary military garb on Monday and thanking the host with “thank yous.”
He also held his ground by rejecting Putin’s demand to freeze the front lines in other regions by pleading not to cede the eastern Donbass region.
Zelenskyy “managed to strike the perfect balance between the tenets of his main arguments, including the one about ceding territories to Russia,” according to Fesenko.
controlling exports
Some think that the European Union failed to stop Russia’s crucial military exports, despite providing funding, arms, and diplomatic assistance to Ukraine.
According to Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University, “It didn’t do the only thing that seriously threatened Russia’s military machine from Europe,” it didn’t take any real steps to enact a trade ban on Russian military equipment, materials, and tools,” Mitrokhin said.
Russia’s technological shortcomings were revealed by the war, which included a lack of advanced weapons and equipment, according to observers.
Moscow has increased its purchases of these tools and chips, primarily through former Soviet Union nations like Kyrgyzstan.
According to Mitrokhin, the EU could have easily set up a system that would check the final destination of these exports and impose massive fines on the Russian companies that allowed them to enter.
He claimed that during the initial stages of the war, “Russia could hardly have found an adequate replacement in China or other countries.”
concentrating on China
Trump’s ostensibly sudden abrupt departure from a cease-fire in Ukraine may have something to do with its larger geopolitical plan.
The White House’s relationship with the Kremlin has been rocked and spent hundreds of billions on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Beijing, not Moscow, is Washington’s main geopolitical rival, and Trump is reluctant to spend hundreds of billions more, according to analysts.
According to Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch, “that’s the money that can be invested in the re-industrialization of the United States is of paramount importance in the context of combating China.”
The White House does not want to risk losing all of its geopolitical leverage to Russia as it did during the Cold War.
After US former president Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking 1972 visit to Beijing and Washington’s subsequent push to invest in China’s industrialization, China benefited enormous geopolitical gains.
In a conflict between the US and Russia, China always prevails, according to Kushch.
Trump therefore needs to have an end to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict so that Washington can concentrate on containing China, he added.
Putin’s “hoodlum mindset”
A veteran of the Ukrainian war said that the fundamental differences between the West’s and Russia’s perspective on the war make the peace settlement and security guarantees more difficult.
Yuri Bohdanchenko, who lost his right leg in 2023 after stepping on a Russian landmine in the southern region of Kherson, said that while Western politicians view any conflict as beneficial or detrimental to their own interests, Putin has the mindset of a hoodlum who always wants to look tough.
Puntin said he didn’t want the world to think that he was weak, but he didn’t when he faced so much resistance, he said, citing his own weakness.
Putin understands that the end of the war threatens his position of power, according to Bohdanchenko, and he snubs the skyrocketing death toll and Russia’s worsening economic degradation.
Source: Aljazeera
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