Timothy Ash: Ukraine — peace talks are on a road to nowhere

by Timothy Ash, a British economist covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Source: Ash on Substack

I don’t think the current US-managed Ukraine peace process is serious. I think the key players are working to very different agendas and many of their publically communicated positions are quite different to what they are actually working to achieve.

It is perhaps useful here then to take the different actors (the Trump administration, Russia, Ukraine and Europe) and to try and dissect their agendas.

Let’s start first with the Trump administration.

As he has shown with the Gaza peace process, President Trump wants a ceasefire, or something in Ukraine which he can sell as a peace to bolster his obsession now with securing the Nobel peace prize. That drive to secure the Nobel peace prize seems driven by an obsession with outdoing former President Obama, who did secure the coveted Nobel prize, albeit seemingly more or less just for breaking the glass barrier and being the first black POTUS. In Trump’s dash to secure his “peace” in Ukraine he is less bothered about the detail — Trump is not the details guy. Trump sees his job as setting the heads of terms, and it is for others to fill in gaps, and actually to deliver the lasting peace. If the peace fails to endure — actually because of the lack of detail — that would not be Trump’s fault but he can blame others for either not delivering the detail or in his mind/spin for not being serious about peace.

Trump wants the quick win, in effect. He is not really bothered to really understand the core drivers of the conflict — actually he seems to be easily swayed at this stage by the Russian narrative, which perhaps reflects the views of those around him in MAGA and the succesful information campaign waged by Russia over many years amongst the US, populist far right.

This willingness always to go along with the Russian view, some have argued is a reflection that Trump is a long term Russian asset — the pee pee tapes line. It might well not be though. It might just be a reflection that Trump likes to view the world through a prism of power, menace and wealth. He sees Putin as a powerful man, almost with a desire by Trump for emulation. Putin operates, in Trump’s views with almost no holds barred — he is willing to do almost anything to deliver on his agenda, to stay in power and to project his imperial ambition of Russia. He is willing to kill and I think Trump’s time as a NYC re-estate developer likely means he knows how mafia bosses operate — you mess with them at your personal peril.

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