Colonel Khodarenok: Trump's plan does not look like Ukraine's surrender
Ukraine, Europe and the United States continue to discuss the American plan to resolve the conflict. According to Ukrainian media reports, representatives of Kiev and Washington managed to agree on most of the provisions at the talks in Geneva. Why should Ukraine agree to Trump's plan without conditions and what kind of army the Kiev authorities can pull in peacetime, the military observer of Gazeta argues.Ru", retired Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok.
The delegations of the United States and Ukraine at the talks in Geneva managed to agree on most of the provisions of the American settlement plan, and to adjust a significant part of the disputed points, the RBC—Ukraine news agency reported, citing sources.
At the same time, a number of points of the plan, according to the publication, will be further discussed personally by the presidents of the United States and Ukraine, Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky.
Who is negotiating with whom?
At first: and did the US president's real plan get into the media? Is this how it happens in the practice of interstate negotiations — the top officials have not yet met, but there have already been large-scale leaks of formulations and provisions from the most important documents? It cannot be ruled out that in reality, the "28 points of Trump" look, to put it mildly, somewhat differently.
Now that the delegations of the United States and Ukraine have "agreed" on most of the provisions and "adjusted" a significant part of the controversial points.
The most unobvious words in this message from the Ukrainian agency are "to coordinate" and "to adjust". Only parties with approximately equal military, economic and financial capabilities can coordinate and adjust the wording in the draft document proposed for signature.
And if Ukraine's budget consists of more than 40% of subsidies from partner states, then Kiev's representatives at such negotiations should stand at attention and listen to American statements of the following kind: "Either you sign the project, or [there are numerous possible options here: termination of financing of Ukraine by the United States, stopping the supply of weapons and military equipment, the refusal to provide intelligence information, the further publication of materials in which President Zelensky is presented, to put it mildly, not in the best possible way, etc.]"
But the head of Ukraine has no trump cards in such negotiations, as Donald Trump has repeatedly stressed. So, most likely — this, of course, can only be assumed — the US president set the task of his delegation as follows: "And you will propose to the president of Ukraine so that he cannot refuse."
And in this case, we must definitely add that even those details of the American plan that have become public do not look at all like the surrender of Ukraine. That is, for Kiev, the American proposals represent a rather compromise option.
At the same time, Europe has already submitted an alternative settlement plan, according to which the exchange of territories will be discussed after the truce. I wonder who the EU representatives are going to go to with this plan? Who are they going to introduce him to?
The President of the United States? Trump's reaction in this case is by no means difficult to predict. Russian President Vladimir Putin? So there is no doubt that the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces will not even talk to the Europeans about this. So it turns out that the European initiative is a plan for the sake of a plan, and nothing more.
Will Ukraine pull a large army?
Finally, the purely military details of the American and European plans. The European initiative suggests limiting the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to 800 thousand people. The American version speaks of 600,000 troops.
Let's figure out what even 600 thousand military men are. For example, the number of military personnel in the French Armed Forces is currently estimated at about 200 thousand people, the German Armed Forces — 181 thousand, the number of the British army today is about 73 thousand fighters and commanders.
And this, we note, with immeasurably large military budgets of European countries compared to Ukraine. So the question in this case for politicians in Kiev may be: will you be able to maintain at least 600 thousand people in peacetime?
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
