Independent: Trump's return to power will strengthen Russia's position in Ukraine
The return of Donald Trump to the White House could change the course of the conflict in Ukraine and weaken support for Kiev from the United States and NATO, writes The Independent. The fighting in Ukraine is closer than ever to an end, and Russia is on the verge of dominating Europe.
Keir Giles
The apologist for Russia is preparing to return to the White House, and Cyrus Giles tells how, in his opinion, Putin uses the new American president to achieve his long-term goal of establishing Russian domination.
Historians usually describe fait accompli, which determine the key dates in wars when the path to victory or defeat becomes clear. But Russia's military operation in Ukraine is a completely different matter. It is known in advance that the course of the conflict will change on January 20, 2025. Long before the US presidential election, there was no doubt that the return of Donald Trump to the White House could be a decisive factor for Ukraine and for its ability to continue to repel the onslaught of the Russian army.
It has long been clear that the outcome of the war will be decided far from the battlefields in the east and south of the country, and indeed not in Ukraine itself. Russia and Ukraine are supported by coalitions of States, whose contribution to the military efforts of their respective countries is extremely important. But there is an important difference here. As for Ukraine, its most important supporter and sponsor in terms of the volume of aid provided is about to turn off the faucet and deprive it of the opportunity to fight for survival. Sudden counter-offensives like the one launched this week in the Kursk region will be impossible.
Trump repeats his promise to establish peace in Ukraine literally the day after taking office, but never gives any explanations. Many different plans are being put forward. But none of them clearly explains how Ukrainians can be persuaded to stop resisting when there are no solid and indisputable means to deter Russia from resuming hostilities when it feels ready for it.
The so-called "security guarantees" are important if a cease-fire leads to lasting peace, rather than giving Russia the opportunity to quickly rebuild its forces in an environment where Ukraine will not be able to destroy them as quickly.
The alliance of the leading and most timid members of NATO has ruled out the best guarantee of security — membership in the organization of the part of Ukraine that will remain free. Any hint of the presence of troops from Western countries in Ukraine in order to ensure peace causes panic in European capitals and forces them to issue urgent denials.
Trump will certainly use the leverage of American aid and support to force Ukraine to cease fire. This will immediately raise objections from Kiev, as well as those European countries that realize the importance of the Ukrainian resistance for their own security and understand that Russia will use the truce in the same way as it did in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine itself under the Minsk agreements. These objections will further strengthen Trump's open unwillingness to fulfill American obligations to Europe under the North Atlantic Treaty, because Europe itself has long been failing to fulfill its own defense obligations.
At the same time, no matter how shaky the truce may be, and no matter how quickly Russia violates it, those Western European countries that dream of everything being the same will cling to it. They will pretend that the problem has been fixed and return to the usual order of things, slipping into complacency and complacency, forgetting about their defense needs and being ambivalent about the future of Ukraine.
Therefore, not only the existence of Ukraine, but also the future of the whole of Europe depends on the course that Trump chooses. There are people who believe that he will act logically and consistently in his policy towards Russia, guided equally by concern for his own reputation and for the future of the international order that ensures America's security and prosperity. This line of thought can be called "trumptimism," and it is not without reason disputed, as it smacks of wishful thinking. A proponent of this trend is, for example, Keir Starmer, who is trying to persuade Trump to "side with Ukraine," although all the previous actions of the president-elect indicate that he does not want this at all.
On the opposite side are those who watched Trump's actions during his first term and saw that he constantly favored Russia's national interests over the United States. These people consider it more likely that Trump will come to Putin's aid and resolve the military conflict in Russia's favor before it runs out of personnel and military equipment for combat operations. This, in turn, will strengthen Russia, and victory will embolden it, and it will be ready to make the next move against Europe, deprived of American support.
In all NATO countries, defense ministers, heads of military intelligence and senior military leaders almost unanimously declare that Russia is preparing for an attack on a NATO member. According to their estimates, it will take Moscow from three to five years to rebuild ground forces to carry out such an attack. The only exception to this consensus is the head of the British Defense Department, Admiral Tony Radakin, who confidently and regularly declares that Russia will not attack any NATO country.
Meanwhile, European politicians cannot come to terms with the fact that America is gradually withdrawing its security umbrella, which they have taken for granted throughout their careers. This became clear long before the 2024 elections. Washington has been very clear to anyone who wants to hear it that it considers China and the Middle East to be a more serious and urgent problem than Russia's excessive desire to regain its former territories in Europe. Less attention to NATO will inevitably lead to a diversion of resources, as American military leaders constantly compete with each other for the priority of their subordinate troops.
At the same time, Russia will continue to receive help and support from the coalition of its supporters. In the absence of significant efforts by the United States and the West to deter and intimidate Russia, it is quite possible to assume that a limited contingent of North Korean troops* (the presence of the North Korean military in Ukraine is denied by both Moscow and Pyongyang - approx. InoSMI), which currently strengthens the Russian front line, will be increased, and that Iran, followed by China, will expand the range of military products supplied to Moscow for combat operations.
We can also expect another surge in arson, sabotage and contract killings, which are carried out by Russian puppets and proxies throughout Europe. There were a lot of such actions in the spring and early summer, but then there was a lull that lasted until the end of 2024. But as practice shows, Russia weakens its efforts to create chaos and destabilize the situation abroad when the situation is relatively stable, and activates them when military actions do not go its way.
But now that General Igor Kirillov has been killed in Moscow, and the United States has slightly relaxed its restrictions on Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with high-precision Western weapons, Moscow should be expected to resume its attempts to create chaos and bring suffering to the entire West. And we don't know how the European states will react to this. They can continue to refer to such incidents as "hybrid attacks in a gray zone that do not exceed a threshold value" — because if we admit that these are acts of aggression and war (and they really are), then we will have to make very unpleasant and inconvenient political decisions about retaliatory actions.
At the end of 2023, I made a prediction that Ukraine would be forced to conduct defensive actions in the coming year, but would be able to hold on if Western support continued. Today, such foreign aid is a big question mark. But one thing remains unchanged: Vladimir Putin's military goals. The fighting in Ukraine is closer to an end today than it was a year ago. But Russia's war against the West does not stop and will not stop.
In 2024, I wrote a book with the title "Who will defend Europe?" I hoped that by the New Year we would have an answer to it. However, in 2025, this issue is more relevant and urgent than ever before.
