Post Segments
Ukraine started the war? That’s like saying America started the war against Japan at Pearl Harbour by shooting down Japan’s torpedo bombers. Zelensky is a dictator? Then so was Winston Churchill – we had no election between 1935 and 1945. Zelensky is despised? His approval rating scored 63% in the latest poll carried out in a democracy.
What do Trump’s Russian friends want? Capitulation of Ukraine followed by the division of NATO. Combine both and we make life easier for Putin in about five years time. Over the last weeks Donald Trump effectively resigned as leader of the Free World. Millions of Americans may not approve but meanwhile the Rest of NATO (RNATO) should distance themselves from Trump’s support for Putin and Russia. There is no reason why anyone who believes in democracy should allow Putin to invade and colonise a peaceful democratic neighbour. As an American, Terry Kinsey, wrote on Facebook, ‘Trump is radioactive with the people he most wants to impress.’
Trump’s much-lauded negotiating skills appear non-existent. He’s worked a miracle for Putin – treating Russia as a law-abiding normal country when there’s an arrest warrant for its head of state. That’s why this ‘peace conference’ took place in Saudi Arabia. America will come back, eventually, but not while this Administration pursues appeasement and isolation, combined with trade war against its
former partners.
RNATO has to tidy up.
As a young parachute engineer I was taught – by veterans of Bruneval, North Africa, Sicily, D Day, Arnhem and the Rhine Crossing – how things can go awfully wrong if a chain of command is broken or confused. Trump has divided the NATO Alliance yet assumes he still leads the chain of command.
Pete Hesgeth making casual remarks such as ‘Don’t rely on us for protection’ simply is not good enough. That there might be token air defence is not the approach of a NATO ally. The same goes for J D Vance. While his rant was entertaining and I’m glad he approves of Brexit, he fails to answer the key question. Is the USA in or out of NATO? Aukus nations should want to know the answer as well.
RNATO should continue as usual but its new Secretary-General, Mark Rutte, needs to make changes and deal with America at arm’s length. So long as Trump is President all US forces must be regarded as potentially no longer part of NATO’s front line. Canada will need to decide how far the North American Air Defence system still operates. What is the status of all the US air bases and sigint lookouts in Britain and Europe?
The Five Eyes don’t have to become four, but the rest of us don’t want Trump passing our secrets to Putin. Which he did last time (read Fiona Hill in Foreign Affairs: she describes Trump’s slapdash working habits) and revealed to the Russians how far we could penetrate their defensive walls. The American media should demand a print-out of their telephone conversation because ninety minutes is a long time for someone as insecure as Trump to show off.
Trump makes our Trident missile system unreliable because it relies on American satellites so we must revive our tactical nuclear weapons and space programme, electro-magnetic weapons programme and so on. Aspiring to 2.5 % of GDP on defence at some future date is absurd: we need to spend at least 5% of GNP and quickly. (See This Defence Plan will make Palmerston Purr.) We will need to invest more on intelligence gathering anyway. Britain needs to expand its arms manufacturing, aircraft and shipbuilding.
For years Putin has taken advantage of zero threats from his neighbours. Create some fast. The first stage of any future peace deal is to halve the front line by removing the Russian army from all Ukraine east of Kherson. That’s a job for diplomats, bankers and economists. Sell off all $ 270 billion confiscated Russian assets, seize more and sell them too, reduce their gas and oil income, keep piling on pressure until financial collapse. Reduce the numbers of their embassies because they contain thousands of spies across the whole European continent. RNATO should have a force ready to threaten parts of northern Russia – Saint Petersburg springs to mind. But the main threat to Putin is to have a successful peaceful democracy right next door showing Russians there are alternatives to the Kremlin’s style of government.
Ukrainian families want thousands of abducted children returned from Russia and given back to their relatives. Many are held in ‘rehabilitation’ camps in occupied Crimea. The Russians murdered the families of one group of children before abducting them. So far, thanks to help from voluntary organisations in Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican, over a thousand children have been returned to their families. Russian soldiers have also tortured and murdered Ukrainian prisoners.
All are war crimes, violations of the Geneva Convention which deserve trial and the prospect of punishment. The United Nations Genocide Convention Article 2 defines “forcibly transferring children of a group to another group” as an act constituting genocide. Perhaps such savagery doesn’t bother the Kremlin but it ought to bother the White House, and all European governments should explicitly support future prosecutions.
Putin’s long held theory of victory relies on an assumption that eventually the West will abandon Ukraine. Only unwavering Western support and consistent deliveries of Western military assistance to Kyiv can force Putin to accept the need to offer the concessions necessary for any resolution of the conflict acceptable to Ukraine, Britain and Europe. But only the United States can provide Ukraine with some critical weapons and military equipment at the scale, speed, and regularity necessary for Ukraine’s defence against Russia. European states should assist in funding US military assistance to Ukraine.
Are the Russians nearing victory?
There’s only one way to disarm Russia, and Ukraine is doing it right now. The easiest way to have enough ‘troops on the ground’ is by keeping the war going. Russia is near enough a failed state. Russia’s young are hurrying abroad and the old face empty shelves in the shops. Friends who have lived there recently tell me there are many highly intelligent, reasonable people in Russia but they are powerless. They also say that the Kremlin regards Trump as vain, easily frightened and easy to manipulate. They must be amazed at their success over the last weeks.
Russia continues to expand its military capabilities, indicating that the Kremlin has no immediate interest in negotiations or a lasting peace with Ukraine. Yet Russian casualties remain horrific. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported on 3 February that Russian forces suffered 48,240 casualties – over three Russian motorized rifle divisions worth of personnel – in January 2025 alone, making January the second highest month of losses since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The highest monthly loss (48,670 casualties) was in December 2024. The Institute for the Study of War [ISW] has observed geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces gained roughly 498 square kilometres in January in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, or roughly 16.1 square kilometres per day costing 96 casualties per square kilometre. These Russian January gains were 100 square kilometres less than their gains in December (593 square kilometres).
The roughly 100-square-kilometer decrease in seized territory between December 2024 and January 2025, coupled with a similar monthly casualty rate, indicates that Russian forces are taking the same high level of losses despite achieving fewer territorial advances in the near term. ISW previously observed that Russian advances slowed from November 2024 to December 2024. ISW previously assessed that the Russian military command probably tolerated record levels of casualties from September 2024 through November 2024 to facilitate larger territorial gains. Will the Russian military command be willing to sustain such casualties if their rate of advance continues to decline as they advance on more heavily defended settlements such as Pokrovsk?
Trump is Putin’s Useful Idiot
Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs Andrei Kolesnikov, member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to Finland’s Institute of International Affairs, recently offered some shrewd conclusions. So far, he says, it all seems tolerable to ordinary Russians. He believes the Kremlin gained further control over society, even while it allows several aspects of private life to continue undisturbed. Although the costs of this war keep going up, the public believes the war is going Russia’s way. Trump has now helped to confirm that view.
Only one NATO member has ever invoked Article 5 of the treaty – the United States of America after 9/11. The Baltic states sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. So did we. As a diplomat for nearly thirty years I can tell you that trust once broken is sometimes beyond repair. Unless the Trump administration swiftly changes course, we may soon be seeking a new global alliance of old friends and some past enemies. Ukraine’s fall, if we let it happen, would be savage and bloody. Millions would flee west. How lamentable if ‘the American Century’ ended so disgracefully.
