President Donald Trump meets in the Oval Office with with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte after his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Photo by Daniel Torok/White House/UPI | License Photo
The theatrics of Monday’s White House confab are over. As badly as the Disasta in Alaska went last Friday, President Donald Trump did a first-rate job of presiding over this conclave of key leaders from six major European states, as well as the European Commission and NATO.
Expressions of solidarity were clear and apparent. And the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a complete reversal of last February’s debacle when the Big Z was escorted out of the White House in semi-disgrace.
But the looming question is the one Gen. David Petraeus posed about the second Iraq War to journalists: “Tell me how this ends?” And, indeed, how will the 3 1/2-year war in Ukraine end any time soon — or will it?
To Donald Rumsfeld’s useful list of “knowns and unknowns,” history should be added in considering how this may end. The combination does not project optimism, although hope can never be abandoned.
The crucial issues are security guarantees and land swaps. Whether the West can achieve a NATO-like pact with Ukraine or not, the Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a firm “nyet” to any outside forces being stationed in Ukraine as peacekeepers from NATO or from NATO members — a seeming reversal of what Trump believed President Vladimir Putin had accepted in Alaska.
Nor has the size, composition and states of origin been even roughly defined. Rules of engagement and other sticking points will arise. Of course, Russia’s repeated and predictable failure to abide by agreements, especially the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the two Minsk Agreements of 2014/15, is too well-known to be ignored. And if this guarantee could not be maintained, would that automatically lead to war with Russia?
About land swaps, Putin has made the case “what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine,” referring to three major Ukrainian cities in the Donbas that are crucial in Kyiv’s defense network and are not occupied by Russian forces.
Zelensky is bound by his constitution and public opinion that at least 80% of Ukrainians are opposed to territorial concessions. His certain response, unless a deal is offered, that he cannot refuse is also “nyet,” but on steroids.
About the unknowns, Putin is on top of that list. From what Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, said right after Alaska and what Trump has said since is that Putin wants to end the war as much as others do. But on what terms? Putin had been unswerving in his intentions to return Ukraine to the Russian motherland whether through occupation or perhaps a puppet government subservient to Moscow.
Students of Putin will say there is no unknown here. Putin’s response will be unchanged. Yet, because Trump and Witkoff believe differently, there is at least some plausible doubt about how Putin will react.
Interestingly, the comment was made that Putin will have to gain support from his cabinet, or what passes for it. But, does anyone believe that Trump will ask advice or concurrence from his advisers? Of course not. Both leaders are in charge.
Most depressing is history. In Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq 2, the answer to Petraeus’ question was crystal clear. We lost. In the case of Vietnam, the North’s will to win won. When Congress cut off aid by 1975, Saigon would become Ho Chi Minh City.
As Trump should realize, after he and the Taliban made the Doha Accords in 2020 without the presence of the Kabul government, it was do svidaniya, Afghanistan. And with the dissolution of the Iraqi army and dismissal of competent bureaucrats who were part of the Baathist Party, the fate was sealed.
Assuming if they meet, and that is by no means a done deal, suppose Putin and Zelensky cannot agree on the land swaps. Or suppose sufficient security guarantees cannot be put in place. From Trump’s position, he has done all he can to end the killings and the war. He, too, is likely to say that he tried and now it is up to the warring parties to make a deal.
Trump would also argue that as Europe has agreed to shoulder the burden to rearm and supply Ukraine — that while the United States is happy to sell weapons to Europe, we have done our duty. And make no mistake. Given Russia’s overwhelming advantages in size and numbers, we know how this will end.
Harlan Ullman is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist, senior adviser at Washington’s Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.
