Russian officials meeting with their American counterparts to discuss the future of Ukraine can rationally expect to get pretty much everything they want from “peace talks” in Saudi Arabia.
They hope to emerge with a deal that cedes at least 20 per cent of Ukraine to Moscow, turns Ukraine into a neutral state with no Nato membership, and that a toothless multinational force will patrol Ukraine’s new borders with Russia.
It is almost certain a Trump-Putin deal would be rejected by Ukraine and its allies. So they will have to take over future negotiations and threaten to put troops into Ukraine.
They insist these negotiations would have to be from a “position of strength” and demand that a peace deal would have to permanently ensure that Russia could never contemplate a further invasion of Ukrainian territory.
That would mean they would have to be prepared for a gigantic investment in peace-keeping forces, with a mandate to fight and kill Russian troops, to act as a deterrent otherwise Russia could roll straight over them whenever it suited the Kremlin.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that 100,000 to 200,000 foreign troops would be needed to deter future Russian designs on his country. That’s on top of a permanent Ukrainian standing army of 1.5 million.
The frontline with Russia, which Starmer says is now Europe’s shared front line, is at least 1,300km (800 miles) long. Protecting that on the ground would fall to the Ukrainians, mostly.
The US has said it will not be part of any peacekeeping force, even one cooked up in a deal in Riyadh. So the Europeans would have to go it alone.
They would take their doctrine from Nato which means they will not want their soldiers sitting in filthy freezing trenches and dodging drones in treelines.
Nato forces are built around manoeuvre warfare. This means staying on the move, churning enemy lines. So a peacemaking force of Europeans would be based around a massive investment in aircraft, long-range missile systems, air defence umbrellas, with ballistic weapons aimed at Moscow and the heart of its industrial complex.
Aircraft could be based inside Ukraine, or kept safer inside Poland and other neighbouring countries. Kyiv has already converted some of its highways to emergency airstrips for jets by adding runways and aprons to busy roads. These could be lily-pads for European jets too.
British forces, which could muster no more than about 20,000 soldiers – and probably less – could be held in reserve with some of the much-admired chieftain tanks. British Special Forces would be on a permanent rotation scouting Russian targets and gathering intelligence.
Specialist British drone units could help Ukraine’s much more advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Force.
Above all RAF surveillance aircraft would have to be part of a web of early warning, and targeting, systems alongside other European nations who, until now, have relied most heavily on American spy planes for such work.
Surveillance satellites would be part of that network soaking Russian soil in waves of electronic surveillance to keep the Russians at bay.
All of this would involve a massive increase in military spending – probably well beyond the five per cent of GDP that Trump wants to see Nato members spending and very far north of the 2 per cent most are coughing up at the moment.
It would also look like war minus the shooting to Russia.
It is exactly what Putin claims was one of the reasons he invaded Ukraine in the first place – to prevent its drift into the embrace of Nato, militarily, and the European Union, economically.
Keir Starmer said that Ukraine’s security is an existential issue for Europe and the front line of Europe’s defence is there too.
Some divisions have emerged with Nato allies in Europe over whether member states would contribute to a “peace keeping” mission if a deal is struck in Putin-Trump talks that Ukraine and Europe would accept.
Donald Tusk Poland’s Prime Minister said his country “will support Ukraine as it has done so far: organisationally, in accordance with our financial capabilities, in terms of humanitarian and military aid…We do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine”.
Outside of a Trump-Putin deal, that is something his government should at least be considering as part of a wider pan-European bargaining tactic when, and if, peace talks are ever opened between the Kremlin and Europe alongside Ukraine.
Mr Trump has made it clear he sees no benefit for the US further helping with the defect of Kyiv.
He recently sent envoys to the Ukrainian capital armed with a memo which demanded about 50 per cent of the country’s future revenues from the extraction of minerals and another 50 per cent of money from extraction licenses.
And that was not in return for future support but was presented as a demand for back payment on what the US has already spent.
Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia are, meanwhile, talking about reopening economic relations with the US and getting the American oil majors back into their economy. They’re looking at ending US sanctions on Moscow with no concessions on Ukraine.
Dismissed as “insulting” and “colonial” the Trump effort to extort profit from Ukraine, as a result of Russia’s invasion of its territory, shows how far the US has abandoned Kyiv’s rights to sovereignty and how far Europe has to go in defending them.
Sir Keir’s offer of British troops was a very small step in that direction.
