Trump's Latest On Ukraine: The Art of unprompted and unnecessary unilateral concessions.

All we need is just a few more unilateral concessions, and Putin will have no chance to resist the overwhelming power of this enormous generosity.

• You know what was missing from the grand strategy of dealing with the war in Ukraine?

• Not offering unearned and unreciprocated unilateral concessions to Putin: we had to kill him with kindness and make it impossible for him to say no to a deal.

• Well, enter the picture, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth..

• The man who is already widely known as completely unqualified to lead the Ministry of Defense of a global superpower has proven his detractors and critics correct.

• In an astonishing case of self-harm and an own goal, Hegseth thought it would be prudent to preemptively give away all U.S. leverage in negotiations with Russia by declaring that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to take back its territories lost since 2014 and that joining NATO was also facing similar unrealistic prospects.

• This is an astonishing display of strategic incompetence.

• There is absolutely no good reason to give away to Putin so much, so soon, with nothing demanded in return.

• The backlash against Hegseth was so strong, including from Republican grandees in the House and Senate (Senator Roger Wicker labeling it as a ‘‘rookie mistake”), that he momentarily backtracked his statement, saying that it was not up to him to promise anything to Ukraine, that ultimately it was up to the U.S. President Donald Trump.

• But Trump somehow decided to repeat these astonishing giveaways and declared that he also doesn’t consider it realistic that Ukraine would join NATO and that, in fact, it would be hard to imagine how a country like Russia would allow that to happen.

• (side note: he even repeated the Kremlin line that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations was the cause of this war. We have previously and repeatedly debunked this theory: Putin invaded Ukraine mainly for territorial aggrandizement and prevention of EU membership. And NATO membership for Ukraine was never really in play for any foreseeable future. And once again, if NATO membership of a country with a big land border with Russia was the ‘‘security threat’’ to Moscow, well then, why didn’t Putin invade Finland to prevent their membership of NATO? And is Moscow now under threat from Finland? We don’t ever hear about such a ‘‘threat’’…)

• In other words, according to Trump, Russia is now enjoying a de facto veto over NATO’s internal decisions.

• It turns out, it is up to Russia to allow or not allow a certain country to join NATO, not to members of NATO itself.

• Got it. Awesome. Amazing.

• What an incredible display of statesmanship and grand strategy.

Trump’s unprompted deference strengthens Putin’s hand domestically and against possible usurpers.

• But this wasn’t the only thing offered to Putin for no good reason.

• Trump thereafter suggested that negotiations were taking place to have meetings with Trump face-to-face and that both leaders would travel to each other’s countries and that there would also be meetings in Saudi Arabia hosted by MBS.

• (side note: curiously, absent from this direct negotiations delegation is the Ukraine Envoy Keith Kellogg - perhaps the only Trump admin representative showing genuine care for Ukraine’s future security - and someone who has repeatedly called for tough measures against Russia if Putin refused to negotiate in good faith. Turns out, inviting an actual negotiator would create a sour mood for the Trump - Putin meeting.)

• This is yet another prestige boost to Putin for no good reason.

• Putin, recall, is someone that couldn’t even travel to South Africa for a BRICS summit for fear of arrest by the ICC.

• And now this war criminal, shunned by the Western world with an ICC arrest warrant for kidnapping and forceful transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, is going to have face-to-face time with Trump.

• This is a massive grant of prestige to Putin, and this will make it easier for him to claim domestic legitimacy.

• As the cost of war is ever increasing, inflation is beginning to bite, interest rates remain high, and huge bonuses to the conscripts are whittling down, growth projections also going down, Russia will be facing a challenging economy by the end of this year if things don’t change.

• Needless to say, this is a threat to his regime, to his standing domestically, which already suffered since Ukraine’s capture of Kursk, which Russia to this day hasn’t been able to recapture, and the casualty rate in eastern Ukraine remains staggering.

• What a great gift, therefore, is Trump’s prestige boost to elevate him in front of his own domestic public, to show that he is being treated with respect and deference by the new president of the U.S.

• This also elevates Putin’s standing within the oligarchs and the security establishment, who for some time now have been worried that Putin has overreached and was going in too much of a confrontational mode with the West—constantly threatening escalation and nuclear war—and that this would therefore hit their interests and turn Russia into a pariah.

• Well, with Trump now offering Putin a face-to-face and promising to end the war as soon as possible, that internal regime threat from potential usurpers is also decreasing.

• In other words, there is now an incentive for oligarchs and the security establishment, even those that could have thought about challenging Putin, to stick around with him and see what happens, realizing that there is finally, a light at the end of the tunnel.

• It is now becoming very clear that ending the war at any cost is Trump’s objective and that increasingly there will be conflict between Europe and Ukraine’s interests and those of the U.S.

• It is absolutely clear that the United States is not very interested in securing a good deal for Ukraine.

• If there was a ceasefire that would last at least for a couple of years and would not end up in another war on Trump’s watch, that would be something Trump would use as a sign of victory achieved through his sheer diplomatic skills.

Entire purpose of NATO and Article V undermined by the U.S. leadership.

• Indeed, the fact that the U.S. wasn’t going to help Europe was also evident in the statement of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

• Hegseth also said that it would be up to Europeans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, that U.S. troops would not be involved in peacekeeping, and that, astonishingly, the (mutual defense) protections of Article 5 would not apply to those peacekeepers in Ukraine.

• (side note: Also, don’t forget that it wasn’t just Hegseth that revealed contempt towards Europe. Vice President Vance also traveled to the Munich Security Conference, and in a sheer display of tone-deafness, said that Europe’s own internal political problems are the biggest threat to Europe. An astonishing display of diplomatic incompetence, and also ludicrous coming from someone that is traveling all the way to Europe—to a continent that is facing its biggest inland invasion since the Second World War—to tell them that it turns out not Russia, but their own democratic issues, is the main cause of their problems. Finally, a lot of European leaders could rightfully retort with ‘‘who are you to lecture us on Democracy? After giving the keys to an entire state to one unelected billionaire?)

• This is also an astonishing statement.

• Firstly, if Article 5 doesn’t apply to protect European troops and nations, then what is the purpose of Article 5? What is the purpose of NATO?

• Indeed, there will be significant repercussions of this into U.S.-European relations, and possibly, to the future version of NATO itself, which we will discuss in future cables.

• But, in the meantime, the signal is also very clear: You are on your own to contain Russia.

• Well, if that is the signal, then that signal must be the one that Europe must accept and act accordingly.

• (side note: once again, President Zelensky was quick to grasp the basic new dynamics at play. His call for Europeans to not rely on Washington and to create an ‘‘Army of Europe’’ in order to contain Russia was also correct and very much welcome.)

• It is now in Europe’s interest to step up, establish massive leverage over Russia, and impose its own presence on the negotiation table vis-à-vis Russia.

• Only this would allow Europeans to dictate terms that are favorable to Ukraine’s and Europe’s security, and one where Ukraine would be positioned in a favorable light, which will be something that we will discuss in the upcoming cables.