Ukraine War: Why Europe is so worried about Donald Trump's Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin
The fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been excluded from talks about his country between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin only heightens the concerns about what is going to happen
Eighty years ago today, following news that Japan would surrender, the Allies celebrated Victory over Japan Day. Finally, this coalition of democracies had defeated the last member of an Axis of dictatorships, which sought to expand their borders through wars of conquest, leading to the deaths of up to 60 million people.
How different the world would have been if this had never happened. What a difference all those lost lives might have made.
Today, Donald Trump, who became the ‘leader of the free world’ on being re-elected US President, will hold an astonishing meeting in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine.
Arrest warrant for war crimes
It must be remembered that Putin is not a democratic politician. He is a murderous thug with his own personal poison squad, the subject of an arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court, and a leading member of a modern-day Axis of dictatorships, which includes North Korea, Belarus and Iran, as well as, in all probability, China.
In a deliberate display of solidarity with Ukraine ahead of the meeting, Keir Starmer held talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Downing Street, greeting him with a hug and later breaking with protocol to walk him back to his car. Pointedly, there were sunflowers, for which Ukraine is famous, in a vase in the Downing Street garden. "They agreed there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” a spokesperson said.
The big question, still, is whether Trump shares that same sense of unity and resolve and is committed to a truly “just and lasting peace” or whether he will seek to reward Putin’s unjustified military aggression by recognising the Ukrainian land that Russia has taken by force.
If Europe’s democracies were confident in Trump, they would not be so concerned to show their support for Zelensky. The fact that the Ukrainian president has been excluded from talks about his own country only heightens the concerns.
Today’s Trump-Putin talks may reveal whether this current US President is as staunch an ally as his predecessors – or something else.
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