Today the Trump administration told the Ukraine war party that their game is finally up. Everything it had hoped for is out of reach:
Hegseth Says Return to Ukraine’s Pre-2014 Borders Is ‘Unrealistic’ (archived)—New York Times, Feb 12 2025
A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective” and an “illusionary goal” in the peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump wants to accomplish, the U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Wednesday at a meeting of countries supporting Ukraine.
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Mr. Trump, he added, does not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO as part of a realistic peace plan.After a settlement, “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again,” but that would be the responsibility, he said, of European and non-European troops in a “non-NATO mission” unprotected by NATO’s Article Five commitment to collective defense.No American troops will be deployed to Ukraine, he said, and Europe should provide “the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.”
Just yesterday Zelenski claimed that Europe cannot guarantee Ukraine’s security without the US. He is right with that. Over the last years Russia’s military power has tripled. No alliance of current European armies could withstand its power should a conflict over Ukraine reignite.
There is only one party that can and is willing to give Ukraine real security guarantees.
That party is of course, as I wrote 20 months ago, Russia:
A main question for Ukraine since it became an independent state was who or what could potentially guarantee its security.
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The Ukraine is now obviously losing the war. It will soon need to sign a capitulation like ceasefire agreement with Russia.But who or what can guarantee that any such agreement will be held up?
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There will be no NATO membership or NATO security guarantees for Ukraine, neither now nor ever.A direct full security guarantee from Washington to Kiev is also impossible. It would create a high likelihood of a direct war between the U.S. and Russia which would soon become nuclear. The U.S. will not want to risk that.
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There is only one country in the world that can guarantee peace in Ukraine and the security of its borders. That country is Russia!But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.
That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.
This was all so very obvious.
Why did it take so long for realism to come to the fore?