Ukraine betrayed

While Putin is stalling for time, Trump is boasting about his betrayal of Ukraine and Europe and seeking an agreement with the Russian satrap in the style of the infamous Munich Pact of 1938.

by Ricardo Angoso

Just as happened at the Munich summit in September 1938, when France and the United Kingdom handed over the Sudetenland to Hitler to appease his expansionist policy in Europe, now US President Donald Trump is trying to appease Russian leader Vladimir Putin by handing over part of Ukraine to stop a war and calm Russia's expansionist desires. He is already negotiating with the Russians without Ukraine, just as when the fate of Czechoslovakia was decided without Czechoslovakia. 

Trump also blames Ukraine for the war and undermines Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's legitimacy for not holding elections despite the war, calling him illegitimate, echoing, not coincidentally, the same arguments as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Poor Ukraine, it's already sold out.

In short, given recent events, the banner of appeasement is once again being raised, disqualifying Europe for seeking a "just and lasting peace" and excluding Ukraine from Trump's parallel diplomacy to end the war. But let no one forget that after the signing of the Munich Pact in 1938, Hitler invaded all of Czechoslovakia, breaking the agreement, and World War II began. Are we on the verge of a rerun of the infamous Munich Pacts with unpredictable consequences?

In any case, what is crystal clear is that the US administration seems determined to impose "pax russe" on Ukraine, amid some slight Russian gains in Kursk and Donbas and the stalemate on the front lines. Ukrainians, meanwhile, face a dilemma: whether to accept continuing to fight despite the limited progress or cede territories to the Russians in order to reach a shameful agreement with Moscow that would end the war.

For now, US President Donald Trump has already spoken with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on at least two occasions, and a decisive face-to-face meeting is expected imminently to end the war. Ukraine has been left out of the initial talks held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between the Russian and US delegations.

Trump doesn't intend to count on Europe in the search for a solution to the conflict, simply to humiliate and scorn it by showing its most perfidious side, nor on Ukraine, which is the occupied and invaded part, but simply to curry favor with Putin to present himself as a great world leader who achieved peace at any price and to focus on what he considers his greatest enemy: China.

As for Putin's "good intentions," they clearly include the annexation of the occupied regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, which was already announced and endorsed by the Russian State Duma (the legislature) in October 2022, and the Crimean peninsula, occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014. 

Russia, which has always disdained dialogue and the search for negotiated solutions with its neighbors—in fact, quite the opposite—has won the war in Ukraine. If Trump's felony is confirmed, both against Ukraine and its Western allies, whom he now seeks to scorn and exclude from the search for a negotiated solution, nothing will stop Putin. But let's not lose sight of the fact that Russia has its sights set on Poland, Moldova, and the Baltic countries. Moscow, which never accepted the definitive loss of these territories, will continue to destabilize and generate conflicts. From now on, there are no guarantees that the protective umbrella of NATO will defend these countries if they are attacked while Donald Trump remains in the White House. Beware, turbulent times are coming; Ukraine has been betrayed.