Almost three weeks ago, Trump had bitten Zensky for the eye of the cameras that he “did not have the cards” to set requirements. Last Tuesday it became clear that Trump himself has an empty hand. Trump was simply trumped by Putin by telephone.
That was logical. Since 12 February, when the American government pulled her hands off Ukraine and Europe, Trump had done everything to make the Putin happy. His negotiating technology had become shocking every day. Trump consistently let himself look into the cards without getting anything of value in return.
Immediately after a first interview with Putin, Trump demanded Van Ukraine that would give up the territory without prospect of serious security guarantees. He had several times accused Kyiv of having started the war and he qualified Zensky as a “dictator” because he had not wanted to organize elections during wartime. In the UN, that dagger in the back of Ukraine translated into an unprecedented alliance with Russia, Israel and North Korea: Broederlijk voted the US and these countries against a European resolution in which the Kremlin was classified as aggressor.
In the meantime, Trumps team in the meantime with former President Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Timoshenko or these two politicians from it Ancien Régime were to poke for a political coup in Kyiv. In the meantime, Zelensky was lured into an ambush in the White House to be publicly barked by Vice President Vance. Because Zensky did not immediately jump into the posture, Trump subsequently suspended American support.
The final announcement that Ukraine could continue whistling to the Western alliance, he delegated to the Dutchman Rutte. Without consultation with the 31 other Member States, the Secretary General stated after a conversation in the Oval Office that the NATO membership was ‘off the table’. Interviewed by Bloomberg, Rutte agreed When asked that the standardization of relations with Russia should also be conceivable in the long term.
As if she hadn’t gone to the knees enough for the Kremlin, the American government continued unabashedly. Possibly in consultation with Moscow, she decided not to provide Ukraine, apart from weapons, no more information, after which Russian troops suddenly managed to recapture their province Koersk after seven months. The decision of Washington no longer has a money for the international center that investigates war crimes, could be booked as a subsequent free -guidance for the Kremlin.
The latest actions – of Trumps statement that Ukraine ‘territory and asset“Must give up, as perhaps the nuclear power plant at Zaporizja, to the suggestion of security adviser Waltz that the US will recognize the annexation of Crimea – let’s for what they were: guidelines.
That’s how the Kremlin understood them. Shortly after both presidents had promised on Tuesday that no attacks on energy infrastructure would be carried out for a month, Putin had two ballistic Iskander rockets and 72 drones fired on Ukrainian goals.
For more than a month I thought the Americans would have hidden an adder somewhere. But that adder did not appear on March 18. Putin silent, waited and won.
The only thing that can tilt the negotiating table of the Caesarist presidents is reckless in Moscow. With two conditions, Putin could exceed his hand: the requirement that not only America but also Europe is waiting for weapons and intelligence deliveries to Ukraine and the claim that Ukraine no longer mobilizes soldiers for his own armed forces. Trump is not about that. Those cards have (still) sovereign Ukraine and Europe in their hands.
Hubert Smeets is a journalist and historian. He writes a column every other week at this place.