Recent weeks have been kind to Russian President Vladimir Putin. First, the US drafted a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine that gave Russia everything it wanted – and then some.
Under the terms of the proposal, Kyiv would not only have to cede territory it has lost both in 2014 and since the start of the full-scale invasion that began in 2022, but also withdraw from land that Russian troops have not managed to conquer. Not only would this be a “neutral demilitarised buffer zone”, but it would be “internationally recognised as territory belonging to the Russian Federation”.
In addition, the plan insisted Ukraine would not join Nato, while Nato, for its part, would agree not to admit Ukraine “in the future” – with the wording suggesting this restriction would be one to last in perpetuity.
On top of that were limits to the size of the Ukrainian army, the obligation to hold elections (“within 100 days”), and the commitment for schools in Ukraine to teach “educational programmes” that would eliminate “racism and prejudice” and promote “understanding and tolerance of different cultures.” In other words, ideas that would promote positive ideas about Russia.
If that were not enough, there were further epic rewards for Moscow. Russia was to be “reintegrated into the global economy,” while the US would promise to “enter into a long-term economic co-operation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centres and rare earth metal extraction projects”.
As a concession, the plan noted, Putin was not promising to undertake military interventions or more special operations against other sovereign states, though he did say he would try not to: “It is expected,” said the draft plan, “that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries.”
Although the uproar in Ukraine and in Europe led to the plan being revised, the fact that such disastrous terms had been set out in the first place was a significant achievement for Russian foreign policy, whose aim – like that of all countries – is to advance Moscow’s strategic interests. There was further good news last week with the release of the new US National Security Strategy, where Russia was conspicuous from its absence in the hierarchy of threats as perceived from the Trump administration.
Despite widely being assumed to have the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth, Russia was only mentioned in the context of a failing Europe – a place that “will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less” thanks to “strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence”.
When Donald Trump then went on to give an interview last week to Politico, in which he declared European nations to be “decaying”, it was as though Christmas had come early for the Kremlin. It is not surprising that confidence in Moscow is sky-high – something that underpinned Putin’s defiant declaration at the start of December that “we are not planning to go to war with Europe. But if Europe wants to, and starts, we are ready right now.”
What next, then, for Putin? The short answer is to wait for rewards to drop into his lap. It is clear that the US has no appetite to keep supporting Ukraine – with numbers released last week showing that financial and military aid have now effectively all dried up. That is another win for Moscow.
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On the other hand, while Trump has made his position clear, he cannot force Ukraine to the table nor dictate the terms that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must accept. Much now depends on whether Europe is able and willing to step up to the real and perceived threats it faces from Russia and indeed from elsewhere – and whether the leaders that Trump decried as weak have the stomach to dig in for the long haul and the brains to work out how to do so effectively.
In some quarters, assessments of the reality of the security architecture required for the world of today, as well as that of tomorrow, are both sober and urgent. At the start of last week, the UK announced a new defence strategy to counter Russian submarine activity, which, according to General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, Britain’s First Sea Lord, has seen “a 30 per cent increase in Russian incursion in [UK] waters just in the last two years”. Working out how to counter that – and how to pay for it – are now priorities for the UK Government, or at least they should be.
What Russia under Putin has shown, just as is the case with the US under Trump, is that it is hard power that matters. That might not be right and it certainly is not fair. But having a seat at the table where global futures are discussed and shaped requires prior investment, thought and strategy. There is a price to pay for not understanding that. These are dark times for us all in Europe. Let’s hope that the pressures from so many different quarters finally provide the focus – and the wake-up call – that have been missing for so long.
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