Ukraine Summit: can Europe persuade Trump to backstop peace deal? | Debate
To talk more about the significance of the Ukraine summit hosted in London, we hear from Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko, and Rachel Ellehuus, director general at the think tank RUSI who was principal director for Europe and NATO policy at the US defence department during President Trump’s first term.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Let’s assume that we’re about to get a statement of unity. We’ve got a hint of that from the European Commission president, where does that take us?
Rachel Ellehuus: Let me first say that it’s really reassuring to see Europeans coming together like this. You have the president of the commission, the head of Nato, you even had Turkey out there as well as Canada. So this is exactly what many Europeans and Americans have been asking for a long time is to step up, to take ownership, help Ukraine stay in the fight, begin to rearm Europe. So I think that’s the contours of a potential deal that we’re seeing here, a commitment for Europe to step up, but to keep Ukraine in the fight until a credible deal is on the table.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Oleksiy Goncharenko, we’ve heard from Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador in America, that Britain wants Zelenskyy to go and sign the deal as he was ready to do on Friday. It’s just a framework, isn’t it, for a deal? Do you think that should happen quickly now, should he go back to Washington tomorrow and go and sign it?
Oleksiy Goncharenko: If you can come back to Washington tomorrow and to get out of what had happened on Friday, that would be great. We need the United States of America. We need it. And we need this country as our key ally, so we can’t lose the United States. What happened on Friday is bad for the United States. It’s very bad for Europe and it’s catastrophic for Ukraine. The only person who was happy is Vladimir Putin. So we need to get out of this as quickly as possible.
“We need this country as our key ally.”
– Oleksiy Goncharenko
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But you’ve been very critical of how President Zelenskyy reacted in that moment. Can he save the day now or does he need to be replaced? Does he need to go and somebody else take over?
Oleksiy Goncharenko: You know it’s not football where you can just replace some player. He’s the legitimate president of Ukraine. We can’t have elections because we have martial law, and from a security point of view, it’s just impossible. It’s physically impossible to have elections when the Russian missiles and drones are falling on the heads of people. And I want to remind you, from 1935 till 1945, there were no elections in the United Kingdom, and it’s clear why. And it was no dictatorship. It was a democracy and is a democracy, as you know. So we can’t just have elections now, which means we can’t change President Zelenskyy. We will have elections after the war finishes. What will happen in that time, Ukrainian people will decide.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So the Ukrainian parliament couldn’t just agree on a new person to run the country?
Oleksiy Goncharenko: No. It’s impossible. The president of Ukraine is elected by the Ukrainian people. And that just happens in elections. And elections will be after the war. So this war, we will finish with President Zelenskyy.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Rachel Ellehuus, it was clear on Friday where the disagreement is, that this framework agreement doesn’t go far enough in terms of security guarantees. And it was pretty clear from what Donald Trump said that he’s not prepared to go any further. So how do you get over that impasse?
Rachel Ellehuus: European allies, together with Canada and others, can explain why those security backstops are so important. It’s easy to forget that this is not the first time that Ukraine has been invaded by Russia. We saw the same thing in 2014. People accepted the pause that gave Russia time to reconstitute its forces, only to come back in 2022. So hopefully those European leaders we saw convening today can explain that we’re not asking for that security backstop for no reason. We want it because we’ve seen this movie before. We need any peace to be sustainable and enduring. And frankly, there are US forces in Europe. So this is actually in the interest of the security of those troops as well. So hopefully that narrative can be conveyed and we’ll get through to the US president.
“We need any peace to be sustainable and enduring.”
– Rachelle Ellehuus
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So that would require a change in his position. His position at the moment is, ‘well, if we can sign this deal and get it all through, then there will be American contractors and American companies in Ukraine, and that will provide some sort of security’. And we heard President Zelenskyy on Friday saying, ‘no, it won’t, because there were American companies in Ukraine before this latest invasion’.
Rachel Ellehuus: I don’t think the markets will react well to that, using contractors and US businesses as security forces. We’re seeing US companies and assets seized across Russia. This is not how you provide credible security guarantees.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Oleksiy Goncharenko, what do you make of that American position that it will be okay because there will be American contractors digging minerals out of Ukrainian soil, and that that’s enough.
Oleksiy Goncharenko: No, definitely it’s not enough. It can be some part of it, but not a major part of it. Definitely, we need boots on the ground. The best thing we need is Ukrainian membership in Nato. That’s the best thing. If not, some treaty with the United States. The kind Japan or South Korea has. If not, it can be a complex of things, including boots on the ground, including economical interests of our allies. It’s absolutely okay. I will be happy to see American and British companies working in Ukraine, but itself, just this, definitely is not enough and we definitely need security guarantees.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So what you’re saying is, when Ursula von der Leyen, and I presume Keir Starmer is about to say something similar, says Europe is ready to defend democracy, that doesn’t have credibility still without the American backstop?
Oleksiy Goncharenko: Exactly. With all respect, I’m very thankful for Europe to support, but you can’t intercept a Russian missile with a statement or with a post on X. You can’t destroy a Russian tank with it. So we need military support firstly. And secondly, I can’t understand why Europe is not making a decision to seize Russian assets, finally, frozen Russian assets. That’s something which is completely in European power. They don’t need to ask America for this. And I hope maybe today’s summit will give us an answer, at least on this question, which will be very important, because having this money, we can buy weapons in the United States. President Trump will definitely like it. It will help Ukraine to fight and to make Russia go to the negotiation table. I want to tell you, Ukraine needs peace. But it should be a real peace.
Watch more here:
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Europe must tell Trump ‘we’re behind Ukraine’ – former US Ambassador
