- By Charles Onunaiju
Whether it was a “listening exercise” or just a probe in to the mind of the Russian leader as the U.S President Donald Trump tried to explain his just-concluded meeting with the Russian leader, President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, it has turned out both “productive” and “constructive” as the two leaders variously described it. Despite that other bilateral issues featured in the summit of the two heads of state, it was largely the Ukraine conflict which is the most vicious and biggest war in Europe since the Second World War which has drawn two brotherly neighbours into a fratricidal armed confrontation that was the major focus. President Trump who had held out a modest expectation of mere ceasefire between the belligerents prior to the summit now look forward to a “peace agreement”, while President Putin who emphasized going to the roots of the conflict held out concrete hope of settlement that would ensure inclusive and durable security architecture for Europe and the rest of the world. What most critics described as a summit that delivered little or nothing was actually not supposed to give direction to anywhere except to define a road map that would lead to somewhere and that it did, by giving effect to broader consultations among all stakeholders. The idea that the summit would have delivered a ceasefire as touted by many Western media and analysts is actually presumptuous because any such decision between Russia and U.S without Ukraine at the table would have been widely and rightly regarded as inappropriate and may not be binding on Ukraine.
Major European powers – Germany, United Kingdom, France, Poland along with the European Union (E.U) which have by excessive partisanship literally bordering on Russo-phobia played themselves out of any meaningful roles in settling what is a majorly an European affair. Even when the inauguration of President Trump signalled some visible thaw in Washington/Moscow relations and made known his interest in a wider NATO- Russia detente, European capitals and the their bureaucracy in Brussels, except for Hungary and Slovakia maintained an icy posture of extreme belligerency towards Russia even with the full knowledge of their limited military capacity to face down Moscow without Washington.
Prior to the Alaska summit, Moscow had sought to cool the rising smoke of angst in Europe by simply insisting that her major intention at the Alaska meeting is to repair bilateral relations with the United States of America, and if accomplishing that, would also consist in discussions about how to end the conflict with Ukraine, it is ready and prepared for it. After all, Russia and the U.S have had a long chequered history of bilateral cooperation and even confrontation, having established diplomatic relations in 1809 and in 1867, Tsarist Russia sold Alaska to the United States, after Moscow considered its Alaska colony too outlandishly distant, having been known as the “Siberia of Siberia”.
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The war in Ukraine, which Moscow still calls special military operation, has become more attritional with Ukraine, despite multi-billion dollar supplies in military hardware, and other aid to Kiev. The European leaders, with very few exceptions maintained a strict policy of arming Ukraine for as long as it takes with the aim of inflicting “strategic defeat” on Russia, a goal they shared with the previous U.S administration of former president, Joe Biden.
This geo-political obsession and gamble of seeking to inflict strategic defeat on Russia torpedoed the then prospective negotiated settlement of the conflict in Istanbul, Turkey just barely four months after it broke out. Documents outlining consensus on terms of settlement were reportedly ready for signing by the representatives of both parties, when the former British Prime minister, Boris Johnson reportedly showed up in Kiev and asked Ukraine to just “fight”. The two delegations returned empty handed from Istanbul and the rest is history but one soaked in blood, tears and destructions.
The first sign that “inflicting strategic defeat “on Russia would not be, a walk in the park was the dramatic and near total failure of the over-hyped Ukraine’s counter offensive in the summer of 2023. While NATO capitals, and especially London, Berlin and Paris were coldly gloating about the then, imminent denouement that Moscow faced with the orchestrated counter offensive, Moscow took out time to construct its famous dragon teeth, reportedly the longest fortress of trenches ever known in war history.
When the counter offensive eventually happened, American Bradley and Abrams tanks, British challenger tanks and even the overhyped German leopard main battle tanks did nothing to change frontline equations thereby rendering the counter offensive one of history’s colossal failure in modern warfare.
Despite extensive planning, heavy mobilization of resources, technical and manpower support with unprecedented deployment of some of the best military hard and soft wares available to individual NATO states, the failure of the counter offensives did not inform a reconsideration of strategy. Rather, the chatter became even louder, among major European NATO states of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes and in providing weapons and other sabotage materials designed to bring Moscow to its knees.
Meanwhile, Moscow rapidly adjusted to the reality of prolonged NATO proxy war which includes setting its economy on a war footing, unprecedented production of war materials, especially assorted drones and shells. In the face of what it considers potential existential threats to her national security or even survival, Moscow reviewed her nuclear doctrine, indicating that an existential threat from a non-nuclear state – backed by nuclear states can elicit a nuclear response, clearly lowering the threshold for triggering the thermos-nuclear catastrophe.
In November last year, Moscow unleashed the then unknown missile strike at Ukrainian city of Dnipro in what was described as unusual, triggering explosion that lasted for three hours. Ukrainian officials reportedly said that it bore all the hallmarks of Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). Soon after, the Russian leader, in a TV address said that Russia had launched a “new conventional Intermediate Range Missile with the code name –Oreshink meaning hazel tree in Russian. According to the Russian leader, the weapon travelled a speed of 2.5-3km per second (10 times the speed of sound) and added that there are currently no ways of counteracting this weapon”.
In the midst of all these, Ukraine faced challenges of manpower mobilization, desertion in its military ranks, yet key European NATO states maintained the stance of inflicting strategic defeat on Russia despite unfolding battlefield realities.
European leaders invested so heavily in the geo-political gamble of weakening Russia through either punishing sanctions or outright military defeat with none of these approaching anything near fruition. Moscow has consistently made a case that NATO incursion into her neighbourhood constitute a flagrant threat to her national security and yet these complaints were routinely ignored or even mocked in Europe, especially when the U.S was footing the bill.
The reality which has caused so much stir and anxiety in Europe is that Washington is taking the lead now, not as before in the project to strategically defeat Russia, but in consultation with Moscow on the prospect for a negotiated settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. If the European leaders are happy to cede leadership to Washington in confrontation with Moscow, it surprises many, why they are aghast at the exercise of such leadership in favour of cooperation with Moscow.
The exploratory meeting in Alaska between President Trump and his Russian counterpart was not expected to be one magic wand that would turn around three and half years conflict but can actually set the framework for broader consultation and substantive negotiations with relevant parties. President Trump is perhaps more realistic that it is time to do away with the geo-political fantasy of militarily defeating Russia in the battle field and his initiative may have been inspired by the battlefield reality where Ukraine performance has been abysmal despite billions of dollars of military assistance .
As Alaska relates to the historical confluence of the Russian Federation and the United States of America, it has signalled a new starting point for bilateral cooperation between Moscow and Washington and even offering the groundwork for ending Europe’s most vicious war, since World War II.
•Onunaiju is a foreign affairs commentator based in Abuja