By Nitya Chakraborty
The U.S. President Donald Trump has fired his missile on Europe, especially, France, UK and Germany by suspending arms aid to Ukraine after categorically making it clear that President Zelensky has to agree to the peace and security deal proposed by Trump on Friday in the White House meeting. The deal is still on the table and only this deal and not all those proposed by EU members at the Sunday meeting in London would be considered.
The directive of Trump is not so much against President Zelensky but more against the French President Emmanuel Macron and the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who floated one month Ukraine truce plan in their meeting giving full backing to the Ukrainian president in his stand that Putin was not serious on peace and Trump was imposing Putin’s plan on Ukraine. The EU countries agreed to increase their spending for Ukraine war. British Prime Minister already announced an immediate aid of US$ one billion.
Within 24 hours of this Sunday meeting of the European leaders led by the French president, Trump announced his halt to aid decision and made it clear that he did not care for any other formula. Simultaneously, in order to put pressure on Zelensky to surrender to Trump’s peace and security draft including the minerals, the U.S. administration sources launched a campaign for the resignation of the Ukrainian president and his replacement by someone who would abide by the Trump formula. Apart, Pentagon ordered halt to cyber operations against Russia to give the impression that President Trump was determined to reach a composite deal with President Putin and he would not tolerate anything which would retard that process.
Not only that, in order to create panic in European nations, the leading supporters of the MAGA group have launched a campaign for the withdrawal by the U.S. from NATO, the IMF and the World Bank . Elon Musk is leading the campaign and interestingly the secretary of the state Marco Rubio who is a senator from Florida and a long term [protagonist of the anti communist rich Cuban immigrants in Florida is behind the campaign. This is meant to hit the EU nations below the belt so that after doing away with all brave postures of taking a position in variance with Trump, they agree to his terms finally and let his peace plan work.
In fact, political sources in Washington and New York say that what angered Trump on Sunday was the assertion by Zelensky that the end of war is very far away meaning that the Trump formula right now at the table would not fructify in a short time. This angered the US president who had plans to finalise the truce draft as also the minerals sharing agreement with Ukraine so that the summit with President Putin can be held latest by the end of March which will include apart from the signing of the peace deal, other important issues like cut in defence spending.
According to Trump advisers plan, once an agreement is concluded with president Putin, Trump will direct his focus on China and arrange for a summit with the Chinese president latest by May this year. Trump advisers want the U.S. President to get the Nobel Peace Prize at the end of this year. All these plans are getting delayed which the impatient U.S. President is not ready to tolerate. Trump’s think tank including the right wing Heritage Foundation are reported to have told him that if Trump sticks to his position on Ukrainian peace formula, European nations will be compelled to come around him because they are not prepared to carry the Ukraine war burden on their own. As a result, Trump is not caring at all for the views of the EU leaders. He is determined to prove this time that he is the leader of the free world, whether Europe wants to stay with him or not.
Pentagon sources say that the US has provided $65.9bn in military support to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion but further contributions hang in the balance after Donald Trump ordered a pause Monday on aid to Kyiv. Former President Joe Biden sanctioned all the aid during his tenure though at the end of his tenure there was an effort to reduce the supplies. Washington has been sending Kyiv increasingly sophisticated air defence materiel, notably including three Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries. European allies have also provided such systems to Ukraine.
Other defence systems on the US list included 12 Nasams as well as Hawk systems and munitions, and more than 3,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. To improve their effectiveness, 21 air surveillance radars were provided, along with equipment that integrates western launchers and missiles to Ukraine’s systems.
Even after the victory of Trump in November last year presidential elections, the then president Biden supplied some highly sophisticated missiles to Ukraine and gave the permission to president Zelensky to fire those missiles against the Russian positions. Discussions were going for the supply of more high tech weapons and missiles to Ukraine at the fag end of Biden tenure. All these have now stopped after Monday’s announcement.
Next 48 hours will show whether the European powers gather the spine to combat Trump’s challenge to them by pursuing their truce formula or surrender to Trump and save the eight decade old transatlantic alliance from collapse. (IPA Service)
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