Vitaly Portnikov: It's Time To Get Out Of Trump's Trap

What we need to discuss is not negotiations, but military aid to Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump said at a White House press conference that he has his own "red line", the crossing of which would force him to withdraw from negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

What are we talking about? When will the head of the White House decide to pull out of the negotiations? About this site Charter97.org talked to the famous Ukrainian political scientist and publicist Vitaly Portnikov:

- First, the President of the United States belongs to a type of political figures who themselves very often do not know what they are talking about when they discuss certain details. When Trump will come out of the negotiations - I can't tell you. Frankly, I don't really understand why we're asking all these questions. If we are discussing Trump's withdrawal or non-exit from the negotiations, we are falling into a trap created by Trump himself. As if the negotiations themselves have any meaning. It is time to get out of that trap.

I would like to remind you that until Trump became President of the United States, there were no negotiations. His predecessor, President Joe Biden, did not hold talks with Putin, realizing the futility of such communication. It was Trump who announced that it was possible to negotiate a ceasefire and war with the head of the Russian Federation, breaking Putin's diplomatic isolation for the sake of it. And even then it was clear that his statements had nothing to do with reality.

The negotiation process itself is an imitation, a fiction of Donald Trump, based on his incompetence, unprofessionalism and desire to find some kind of "business understanding" with Putin. This desire is based on absolutely erroneous conclusions about the potential of the Russian economy.

We should not be interested in negotiations, which have not happened, do not exist, and probably will not happen, but in the extent to which the United States is willing to help Ukraine and impose new sanctions against Russia.

And new sanctions are also, to a certain extent, an illusion. Neither the U.S. nor the European Union has exceptional tools that would force Putin to stop the war. If they existed, they would have been used before Trump, and the war would have been over by now.

In today's world, where Western economies compete with the Global South, the US has lost the ability to exert exceptional economic pressure. They have no real leverage to stop the war with sanctions. Biden didn't have them, and neither does Trump.

The main thing is military and financial aid to Ukraine. Will the U.S. be ready to provide European countries with opportunities to buy weapons if they stop supplying them themselves? Will European countries in the future become the main supplier of weapons to Ukraine instead of the US? This is the key question of the next few years. Everything else is irrelevant. Everything else is an imitation of the process.

- In the fall, Belarus will host the West-2025 exercise. Poland and the Baltic States openly talk about the possible danger of these maneuvers, because a full-scale offensive against Ukraine began with such exercises. Is there a danger for the countries bordering Belarus?

- Nothing is the same. Holding exercises in Belarus does not mean that Russia and Belarus will prepare for an invasion of one of the NATO countries. We don't see Russia's real resources for a war on multiple fronts right now. If the Ukrainian army, armed with old-style Western weapons, has been holding back the Russian army for more than three years, it is unclear with what resources Russia can wage a successful war against NATO countries.

I do not rule out that in the future, during Trump's presidency, Moscow will try to test NATO's unity - perhaps with a provocation against countries bordering Russia, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland. However, the likelihood of such a scenario in the coming months is low - against the backdrop of active fighting in Ukraine and the continued unity of the West.

- Is some kind of hybrid scenario possible. For example, the entry of some "green men" from the territory of Belarus into Latvia's Daugavpils?

- Yes, such scenarios are possible. Under the guise of "protection of the Russian-speaking population": from Belarus - to Daugavpils, from Russia - to Narva, or to provide logistics in the Kaliningrad region. However, everything depends on the scale and risks. The current situation of the Russian army is not the best. Russia already lacks resources in Syria, Africa, and the Caucasus. Where is its capacity to stage provocations against NATO countries? Such a provocation may end in a serious defeat for Russia and have far-reaching consequences.

- How can Lukashenko's regime influence the war in Ukraine?

It has no sovereignty, only symbolic independence. Belarus as a state cannot influence any event in the world now. Perhaps, in the future, sovereignty will return. In the meantime, Belarus can exist in three variants: a state deprived of sovereignty and subject to political and power dictate from Moscow; a territory that will be annexed to the Russian Federation; sovereignty of Belarus in the future, but for the time being we have to live to see that future. In the state Belarus is in, it is a choice between these two scenarios - sovereignty and disappearance. It has no influence on either.

Could Belarus become a springboard for a new attack on Ukraine? It can, if there is enough military force. Does Lukashenko have anything to do with it? Nothing.

- In one of your recent interviews you said that Putin's main dream today is to restore the USSR. Will he have enough strength? Ukraine is resisting, Turkey has interests in the Caucasus, Armenia has started to move towards Europe, China considers Central Asia its fiefdom. Can Russia reverse all these centrifugal processes on the territory of the former USSR?

- Everything depends on the course of the war in Ukraine. And it is not only about the territories of Ukraine, which Russia can seize. We are talking about depriving Ukraine of its sovereignty, about creating in the future some kind of construction of a "union state" of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Certainly, this is the base on which Russia's return to the borders of the 1991 Soviet Union can be based.

This is the same base on which the Soviet Union was built. Which republics were the founders of the Soviet Union? Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasian Federal Republic, which at that time included Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. And it is clear that in conditions when there is control over Ukraine and Belarus, it is much easier to act in the Caucasus.

As for Central Asia, Russia will certainly have to negotiate with China. However, various hybrid forms of existence are possible here.

Central Asian countries are by no means out of Russia's influence yet. The formula is that when they want good relations with the People's Republic of China, they must also maintain good relations with Moscow.

- Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who gets along well with Trump, recently shared details of a conversation with the White House. He convinced the US president that Russia is no longer a superpower. How can the West stop fearing Russia, which in many ways has now become a regional power?"

- I don't think the West fears Russia. Rather, it counts on the solidarity of the US and Europe. It is this solidarity that is lacking now - because of the choices Trump has made. But Russia remains a nuclear power with a large territory and the ability to destabilize the situation on its borders. This can only be countered by joint efforts, which only have an effect in the long term.

But when the main country of the West, the center of the democratic world, does not want to do so, then of course the others still need to think through how they will act in the near future. In addition, in the absence of the United States and the strengthening of Russia's position in Eastern Europe, the voters themselves in European countries may quite quickly reorient themselves toward political forces that offer them mutual understanding with Russia as an alternative to possible confrontation. This is another danger, more serious than a lack of solidarity.

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