Author of books such as Gulag or To Cortina de FerroAmerican journalist and historian Anne Applebaum stated in an interview with DN that the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine cannot be taken for granted: “I think it is still possible to imagine a victory for Ukraine. And, most importantly, remember: Russia loses wars. Russia lost the Crimean War. Russia lost the Japanese War in 1905. Russia effectively lost the First War Worldwide. Russia lost the war against Poland in 1920, the Polish-Bolshevik War. Russia lost the Cold War. Russia lost the War in Afghanistan. It often loses wars, and often, when it loses, there is a political change afterwards. Therefore, political changes in Russia almost always happen because of military defeats. Therefore, it is very likely, in fact, that, at some point, this war will become too much for Moscow. They will say: ‘Why are we fighting? We have already had a million dead or injured. We are losing millions of dollars every year and we are not winning.’ And finally the war will become unsustainable.”
After the interview, carried out during Applebaum’s visit to Lisbon, to go to Fólio in Óbidos, Donald Trump again had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, with both agreeing to meet in Budapest on a date to be defined. And the day after the phone call with the Russian leader, Trump received Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, a meeting that fell short of the Ukrainian president’s expectations, as the promise of supplying missiles Tomahawk will have been, at the very least, postponed.
Even though he is an ally of the Ukrainians, the American president also sees himself as a mediator in the conflict and does not hide that his priority is to end the war, which he said to both Putin and Zelensky. In fact, Trump was very explicit, in a message on social media, about the appeal he made to the two leaders in the space of 24 hours: “the meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was very interesting and cordial, but I told him, as I also strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing and close a DEAL!” Trump added that “there has already been enough bloodshed”, so “they must stop”. And he also wrote: “May both claim victory, let History decide! No more shootings, no more deaths, no more huge and unsustainable expenses.”
A negotiation to stop the war is one thing, a peace agreement is another. Trump, who has always said that if he were the American president in 2022, the Russian invasion would not have happened, and who during the campaign that led to his victory in 2024 promised to end the war in a matter of days, is determined to put an end to the “killing” and hopes to convince Ukrainians and Russians to come to the table. As with the war in Gaza, the priority is a ceasefire. And as for Gaza, it is foreseeable that a plan will be presented in parallel to prepare, in phases, the future.
It turns out that on the ground Russia has the advantage. There are vast territories in Eastern Ukraine under the control of the Russian military, some even formally annexed. And the Ukrainian resistance, although it prevented the planned trip of Russian tanks to Kiev, has more easily managed to send drones against refineries in Russia than to force the enemy to retreat in Donbass. The lightning war planned by the Russians in February 2022 has become, in these three and a half years, a war of attrition, for both sides. Casualties are piling up, economies are suffering, and even if dissenting voices are muffled, much more so in Moscow than in Kiev, the idea of a negotiated exit has appeal.
Also in an interview with DN, published in August, the reporter for Wall Street Journal Yaroslav Trofimov, born in Kiev and who has been covering the war for the American newspaper, commented on the possibility of a Ukrainian victory, the result of the country’s resistance and support from Europe and the United States: “Well, Russian troops should be in Kiev in March 2022 and they aren’t, right? I think it all depends on how you define victory. The survival of Ukraine as a totally independent country that still controls 80% of the territory while fighting alone against a nuclear superpower – that’s already a huge victory. I don’t know many countries that would have been able to face Russia in a full-scale war and not be defeated within weeks.”
Yes, Russia, heir to the Soviet Union, is a nuclear superpower. He lost some wars, yes, like Applebaum, a reporter for Atlanticmarried to the head of Polish diplomacy, denounced, but also won many, and in the Russian imagination the victory over Napoleon in the 19th century and the triumph over Hitler in the 20th century stand out. It is a nuclear superpower with weaknesses, and it is these weaknesses that could help Trump get Putin to negotiate and allow Zelensky to hope that the outcome is not a mere freezing of the front line. The enthusiasm of some figures close to the Kremlin for the prospect of post-war economic cooperation with the United States is interesting, including the proposal for a tunnel under the Bering Strait, just as it is interesting that Russia recently proposed extending the New Start nuclear disarmament treaty for a year.
Trump even seems interested in using the strength of the United States to impose peace in various conflicts, and this one between Ukraine and Russia is the one that most threatens to destabilize the planet. Too many times in these three and a half years there has been talk of the risk of a nuclear war, if the West, from supporting Ukraine with weapons, moved to open confrontation with Russia. Trump and Putin continue to measure each other. After the summit in Alaska in August, little or nothing happened. Now, what to expect from the still-undated meeting in the capital of Hungary, a country, not to forget, of the EU and NATO that insists on maintaining bridges with Russia?
Trump’s unpredictability could play into the hands of the United States and Ukraine here, as it leaves Russia uncertain about what might come next, because if America stops the sale of Tomahawksdoes not fail to provide important information to Ukrainians, namely data collected by satellite, for example, about Russian oil installations. Putin may continue to demand Ukraine’s capitulation, but he knows that the United States needs Russian concessions in negotiations for Trump to claim success. Just one certainty: neither Trump, Putin, nor Zelensky can count on a 100% favorable outcome.
And Europe also has its expectations about what could come out of the negotiations on the future of Ukraine driven by Trump, namely the countries that have historically been most afraid of an expansionist Russia, such as Poland and the Baltic countries or Finland, and which are committed to defending the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine as the main guarantor of maintaining its integrity and sovereignty in the face of an enemy in the which they don’t trust.
Deputy Director of Diário de Notícias
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