It is unlikely that Russia’s remarks, indicating that it will only negotiate with the United States on the issue of Ukraine, will result in the exclusion of Ukraine and its European partners from the negotiation process, as the incoming Trump administration will not be interested in this.
This opinion was expressed in a commentary to Ukrinform by Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
“I don’t think it will happen. The Europeans have made it clear that there will be no discussions about Ukraine without Ukraine, and it is very unlikely that Donald Trump’s White House will engage in negotiations with Russia without Europeans. Therefore, there is no cause for concern that the Europeans will be sidelined in the process,” the expert stated.
At the same time, she suggested that Russia might try to initiate talks with some European countries, those they like best, but again, these demands would have no results.
Stelzenmüller believes that even the Trump administration recognizes the importance of Europe’s role in the ceasefire, in rebuilding Ukraine, in diplomacy, etc.
“It is difficult for me to envision the Americans dealing only with the Russians,” the expert reiterated.
She also noted that Trump is no longer talking about ending the war within 24 hours, but the 6-month deadline he mentioned is “not very realistic either.” The expert acknowledged that the question of whether the United States will continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine under the new administration is a concern for many people. However, Stelzenmüller noted, Trump’s transition team has told European diplomats that they will continue to provide military support to Kyiv. At the same time, Washington will expect Europeans to spend much more on defense. It is difficult to predict exactly what the new U.S. administration will do, not least because of the inconsistent foreign policy preferences of different groups of the American “hard-right”, the expert noted.
When asked whether the next government could be expected to try to ease the sanctions against Russia that the Biden administration has imposed, including in recent days, Stelzenmüller did not rule out that this is possible for “the simple reason that there are a lot of very powerful business interests behind Trump, and we don’t know what their relationship is with Russian business interests.”
“And I am very glad that the Biden administration did this at the last minute and therefore set the bar very high. And, of course, everyone, including the media, interested think tanks, will be watching very closely what the Trump administration will do there. We can start checking the names of the sanctioned companies,” the source said.
As reported, in recent days, Moscow has been making statements that the Kremlin is ready to talk about Ukraine and the situation in Europe only with Washington.
