US-Russia Bonhomie In Riyadh Leaves Europe High And Dry

♔Talks between senior American officials led by US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s long-term foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh got off to a flying start.  “We weren’t just listening to each other, but we heard each other,” Lavrov said after the meeting . “I have reason to believe that the American side started to better understand our positions.” This is high praise from the usually dour Lavrov.

ꦡThe talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war lasted for over four hours and went beyond peace-making to resetting US-Russia bilateral ties. The two sides announced the setting up of respective "high level teams’’ to co-ordinate discussions on ending the war in Europe

༒Marco Rubio said that both countries had agreed to re-establish "the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and Moscow” and added that the two sides had agreed to “begin to discuss and think about and examine both the geopolitical and economic cooperation that could result from an end to the conflict in Ukraine.”

𝐆Ukraine will come into the picture when the actual negotiations to end the war begins. The Riyadh  meet was just a  preliminary step to set up the talks. Both Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Europeans have been briefed by the Trump team, national security adviser Mike Waltz insisted at the presser after talks in Riyadh. Vice President JD Vance held discussions with Zelenskyy while in Munich last week and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent was the first senior Trump administration official to visit Ukraine. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth met NATO defence ministers in Brussels but spoiled his case by saying that Kyiv must not join NATO. Those opposed to Trump believe that the US has sold Ukraine’s interests down the line. Marco Rubio insists  that "concessions will have to be made by both sides, for the agreement to succeed."

൲"Developments so far suggest that the Trump administration had largely negotiated a deal with Russia. The agreement may involve ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine, adjusting Ukraine’s borders, ensuring security guarantees through European peacekeepers, and partially lifting U.S. economic sanctions on Russia. While Europeans may find it difficult to accept, they will ultimately go along with it,” said Gulshan Sachdeva of JNU’s Centre for European Studies.

Territory

ꦓNegotiations will revolve around territory, Ukraine’s NATO membership, security guarantees for Kyiv  and lifting of  the wide ranging  sanctions slapped on Russia by the Biden administration.

📖Russia’s maximalist position on land will be that Ukrainian troops vacate from four administrative regions that Moscow annexed in September 2022 –Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhshia. The population in these areas in eastern Ukraine are largely Russian speakers. They were taken over after a referendum that both Kyiv and the West dubbed as sham.  Ukraine has been able to get back certain areas from these four region during the war. Whether Russian negotiators will be able to persuade Ukraine to vacate  the annexed land is open to question. Both sides will drive a tough bargain.  The Kremlin says Moscow will never consider trading the territory it occupies in Ukraine for Ukrainian-held parts of Russia's Kursk region. Zelenskyy will fight tooth and nail to get back as much territory as he can from Russia.

NATO

𓆏Russia will want a commitment that Ukraine does not join NATO. Kyiv applied in September 2022 but its membership is so far on hold. NATO’s expansion is a sour point for Moscow. Russia insists that if  NATO had not expanded to its current  32 members from an initial 12-member miliary alliance when it started in 1949, the war would not have begun. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War was over. Yet Nato expansion did not stop.

Security Guarantee

🐠Ukraine will naturally insist on security guarantees  to ensure that Russia does not send in troops whenever it feels like taking over territory. What those guarantees are will be have to be worked out in detail. European leaders have said they are ready to give Ukraine security guarantees. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is committed to putting boots on the ground if need be. This will be a major sticking point, as Russia will not accept European presence in Ukraine, which is Moscow’s backyard. Lavrov made it clear that this was "unacceptable’’ to Russia. “So we explained today, the appearance of armed forces from the same countries, albeit under a foreign flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard. This is, of course, unacceptable to us,” Lavrov made clear at a presser in Riyadh.

Sanctions

🌟The third  part of the negotiations would be the lifting of sanctions, and unfreezing of  Russian funds from banks in Western capitals. Russia is desperate that the economic sanctions are lifted. There will be give and take and both sides will drive a hard bargain, with the backing of Europe. But when the "Big Boys’’  negotiate a deal, neither Zelenskyy nor European leaders have much to do.

ꦇHowever there will be massive pushbacks from those opposed to Trump and some within the Republican party. Many have already blamed Trump for letting Putin dictate terms. The pulls and pressures within the Trump camp is evident. Defence secretary Peter Hegseth, a former Fox News host had earlier said that a return to pre-2014 border between Ukraine and Russia  was "unrealist.’’

ꦫ"The deal between Trump and Putin will be by and large on terms Putin wants. Europe will have to revoke sanctions on Russia, and defreeze the Russian funds, and to provide a peace--keeping force with nominal US guarantees,’’ said Ambassador KP Fabian. "The West is correcting its decades long mistake of expanding NATO mainly for the benefit of the Military -Industrial-Congressional Complex. Whether Europe will recognize its mistake and correct policy, it is not clear,’’ he said.