President-Elect Donald Trump had made peace in Europe a key campaign pledge, but several NATO member states are dedicated to total Ukrainian victory and will discuss how to “thwart” him and keep Kyiv in the war even if Washington withdraws support.
London, Paris, and Warsaw are to form the nucleus of a European effort to keep Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia going even if the Trump Presidency from January 2025 tries to bring an end to the Ukraine war. Exactly how he will achieve this campaign pledge has not been publicly articulated to date. However, a ‘land swap’ between Kyiv and Moscow or a Korean-style demilitarised zone has been discussed as options open to Trump, neither of which aligns with Ukraine’s official ambition of total victory.
British Tory-aligned broadsheet The Daily Telegraph cites senior government — but unnamed — sources who tell of what the paper says is “expected to plot a last-ditch attempt to thwart Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back US support for Ukraine”. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is in Paris today, having reviewed troops with French President Emmanuel Macron on the streets of Paris for Armistice Day, and the pair had talks on defence matters during the day.
It is stated the pair will have talked about keeping Ukraine fighting and how to persuade outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden to give a last-minute signoff on allowing Ukraine to use the long-range bunker-buster cruise missiles given to it by Western partners to launch strikes deep inside Russia. Ukraine has been calling for authorisation to use these advanced modern weapons in this way for months and it is a key part of President Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’, but the U.S. believes it risks serious escalation with Moscow.
A UK government source told the paper: “We are very keen to make sure we can make the most of the time between now and Jan 20 [when Mr Trump becomes US president] and not just put everything on hold until the next administration”. At the same time, a Downing Street official has told The Guardian newspaper that Starmer and Macron are moving to “best to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position going into the winter”.
That report characterised today’s meeting between Starmer and Macron as a “pointed show of European solidarity days after Donald Trump’s re-election”. The two countries funding Ukraine’s war post a possible future U.S. withdrawal of material support comes with a significant cost, however, given both the UK and France are presently struggling through major budgetary issues.
Whether voters can be persuaded to foot the true bill of Eastern European defence with American taxpayer help remains to be seen.
Beyond today’s France-UK meeting, Poland — now under the leadership of Eurocrat-globalist veteran politician Prime Minister Donald Tusk — is also moving to be a key player in the emerging anti-Trump foreign policy alliance. Tusk is expected to meet with British leader Sir Keir Starmer this week for talks and will have further discussions with Macron and Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte. Tusk is also expected to involve NATO’s Scandinavian and Baltic members in the process.
Polish state television TVP quotes PM Tusk as having said over the weekend: “There is no doubt that this new political landscape is a serious challenge for everyone, especially in the context of a possible end to the Russian-Ukrainian war as a result of an agreement between, for example, the president of Russia and the new president of the United States.
“In the coming days, we will very intensively coordinate cooperation with countries that have a very similar view on the geopolitical and transatlantic situation and situation in Ukraine.”
Tusk said Ukraine ending the war would be a “fundamental threat to Poland and Polish interests,” given Poland has a land border with Russia’s Kaliningrad (formerly Konigsberg) and Russian nuclear ally Belarus.
As the Telegraph acknowledged, the moves against President Trump’s ambition to bring peace to Europe “could be seen by Mr Trump as an attempt to undermine US foreign policy.”
President Trump has, meanwhile, been making progress on his ambitions. He has spoken with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss his plan, with a German government spokesman stating that during their call, the two leaders “agreed to work together towards a return to peace in Europe.” Some media outlets claim Trump also spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone, but Moscow later outright denied this.
Speculation is mounting over how precisely President Trump could engineer a situation in which Ukraine and Russia agree to cease hostilities. British spymaster Sir Alex Younger suggested over the weekend that a land swap—where Russia returns some Ukrainian territory for Russian land captured by Kyiv—may be inevitable, if undesirable for those involved.
The senior intelligence man said it would be up to the UK and others to make sure such a peace would be one favourable to Europe, saying: “Trump’s advisers, on the one hand, are saying that Ukraine should be forced into neutrality, so basically back into the bosom of Putin.
“Others are talking about the need to do a land swap, but then reinforce its military and economic capabilities, and we need to make sure we are compounding that second argument.”
Also in contention, allegedly, is a demilitarised zone in Eastern Europe keeping Ukrainian and Russian forces apart, policed by European troops, including UK forces, almost a return of the old British Army of the Rhine, which held Western Europe in the face of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. The 800-mile border said to be envisioned could tie up thousands of European troops for decades.
