AThus, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are said to be old acquaintances who speak regularly on the phone, up to seven times since the former left the White House in 2021, including after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the February 24, 2022. Revealed by Bob Woodward, the famous American journalist, in a book which has just been published in the United States, War (“war”, Simon & Schuster, 448 pages, untranslated), the information has not been formally denied by the Trump team. In any case, it does not bode well for the future of Ukraine, whose fate is today largely linked to the result of the presidential election in the United States on November 5.
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The Republican candidate boasted that he could resolve the Ukrainian crisis within twenty-four hours, if elected. No one seriously believes that this is possible, but enough is known about his vision of Russia to imagine the contours of the envisaged solution. Trump’s running mate and vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance has also put forward a scenario which would involve the neutrality of Ukraine – therefore the impossibility for kyiv to join the Western alliance. This is, let us remember, one of Russia’s demands.
We must therefore imagine what a possible victory for Donald Trump, on the evening of November 5, perfectly plausible three weeks before the election, would mean for Ukraine. This time, unlike the evening of November 3, 2020, he is ready. He has a plan for Ukraine. Logically, he will ask for the abandonment of American military aid to kyiv. It will not stop overnight, but such an announcement will suddenly disrupt the strategic landscape: the Europeans are not able to compensate for the loss of American aid. The Ukrainian army will have more and more difficulty to resist the Russian offensive.
Trump will then be able to propose to Vladimir Putin to open negotiations, in terms that we can easily guess, since the Ukrainians would find themselves in a weak position. It would, in reality, be the defeat of the talks for Ukraine.
The victory of might over right
Let’s not kid ourselves. The defeat of Ukraine would also be the defeat of Europe. Because we must now imagine the consequences that a victory for Russia would have on Europe in this war of conquest that it has been waging for ten years against this country to which it refuses a separate destiny.
In this scenario, a first question arises regarding the negotiations: would the Europeans participate? Their presence is undoubtedly the least of the concerns of the Trump team, which has nothing but contempt for the European Union and sees itself unscrupulously settling the fate of Ukraine directly with Moscow. “It will already be good if the Ukrainians are invited to the negotiating table”quips an American Democratic expert. This is therefore a first snub for Europe, although it is much more directly concerned than the United States by this conflict on its own continent. It is not said, moreover, that a Democratic administration, in the event of Kamala Harris’ victory, would have planned to involve the Europeans more in a possible negotiation; questioned on this point by CBS on October 7, the Democratic candidate limited himself to saying that she would not negotiate with Putin without the Ukrainians. She didn’t mention anyone else.
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