Weekend Update #107: Some Leaders Wants to Tell Ukraine What Peace Means for Ukraine

The Three Groups of Trump Appointees; Russia will have trouble in the Second Half of 2025

Hi All,

This has been week when a number of states and leaders acted as if they knew what was better for Ukraine than Ukraine did itself. Its remarkable to see western leaders starting to try and negotiate for Ukraine, without seeming to talk with Ukrainians themselves. And its not just negotiating—they are making concessions for Ukraine and undermining any Ukrainian negotiating position.

Also, the Trump cabinet choices really dont look good for Ukraine. Basically you can break down the people being talked about for Trump positions into three different camps, and only two of them are getting jobs. Finally, some important statistical work which points out the massive problems facing the Russian economy in 2025.

Before that, in case you missed it, Mykola Bielieskov and I released a new podcast yesterday. We talk about the status of the battlefield, and what the election of Donald Trump might mean for the country (will develop that today). Here you can go directly if you want to have a listen.

Some Leaders Want to Tell Ukraine What Peace Means for Ukraine

Negotiating for another country must be easy. Leaders seem to love to do it, even when they are mostly incompetent in running their own. Right now, for instance, there seems to be lots of negotiating for Ukraine, without talking to Ukraine. Its a fascinating and troubling phenomenon, once again, as before Feb 24, 2022, assuming that Ukraine is an object that can be told what its future will be.

The most egregious example of this was the call by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Vladimir Putin. This story exploded Friday. It seemed that Scholz requested the call (that is what the Russians say and the Germans have not denied it) and that would make sense in a desperate sense. Scholz is in a terrible political position. He is facing an election in February/March 2025 and his party looks set to be roundly defeated. For those who dont know, Scholz’s coalition government has fallen apart, and as he cant command a majority in the Bundestag, there will have to be a new vote. The assumption, by the way, is that the much more pro-Ukraine (at least verbally) Frederich Merz, head of the CDU, will almost certainly be the chancellor of the next German government. So that at least is a small grain of comfort.

Time to chat?

Anyway, probably to try and bolster his domestic standing (and maybe even curry favor in Washington both with the Biden Administration and the incoming Trump one) Scholz reached out to establish contact with Putin. The act itself is extremely important, maybe more important than even the words that Scholz and Putin said to each other. The act of asking for a call and following up is a form of negotiation in and of itself. Its basically saying “lets start talking and see what happens”.

Now in and of itself this is not a bad thing, indeed it could be a good thing—if Scholz had coordinated his actions with Ukraine ahead of time. However, clearly he did not. Scholz seems to have informed the Ukrainians that the call was going to happen, but the Ukrainians were not pleased. How do we know, well when the story emerged there was an instant Ukrainian reaction which was, to put it mildly, one of derision and suspicion.

President Zelensky decided to publicly rebuke Scholz, accusing him of opening a “Pandora’s Box” by requesting and then making the call.

“This is exactly what Putin has been wanting for a long time: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation.”

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry followed this up with another statement condemning the German move.

"Even if the German chancellor did not express any positions contradicting Ukraine's stance, conversations with the Russian dictator do not add value in achieving a just peace…”

The Ukrainians had every right to be suspicious. Scholz has been the European leader most responsible for the limits on the weapons being given to Ukraine. He has stated publicly that he does not want Ukraine to strike targets in Russia, and, while being generous, has overwhelmingly given either defensive systems (anti-air) or shorter range offensive ones. Also, the talk between Scholz and Putin was no perfunctory affair, it reportedly lasted at least an hour. That’s a long time for a call that German sources said only covered a few points.

Now the Scholz move was so cackhanded that it should not make a major difference. The reaction in Germany was hardly supportive, and Scholz’s time in office is probably short. However that is not the point, to see one of Ukraine’s partners, clearly against Ukraine’s wishes, call the man leading a brutal war of aggression against Ukraine (that very day there were some terrible attacks on civilian targets), is an all downside move (except maybe for Scholz’s standing in the SDP—which has a wing that remains distressingly pro-Russian). It shows how little what Ukraine wants really matters, and establishes a larger precedent that “bigger” states might reach out to Putin and try and impose a deal on Ukraine.

Its even more worrying, as the signs are that this is something that the incoming Trump administration has very much on its agenda. Some of the new nominees, and others around Trump, seem to regularly float different ideas of what a peace plan might look like for Ukraine, without of course paying the slightest interest to what Ukraine wants.

The two things that they are saying over and over again are that Russia will able to keep all/much of what it occupies within the internationally legally recognized borders of Ukraine and, depressingly, that Ukraine will have to accept a neutralist position with no NATO membership. JD Vance (who in some ways matters far more than any of Trump’s cabinet choices) has been hammering this point for a while. Just before the election he reiterated the main points of his “peace” plan for Ukraine, which included not only no NATO membership, but quite possibly no EU membership for Ukraine. Vance said that not only should the North Atlantic alliance be off limits all other “Allied institutions” should be denied Ukraine.

This drumbeat of a forced neutralism on Ukraine (which is perhaps the one thing that almost all Ukrainians oppose) was amplified by Tulsi Gabbard (more on that below) in one of the more bizarre videos of the week, when she basically used Hawaiian metaphors to argue that Ukraine needed to be left exposed to Russian brutalities.

Aloha!

Btw, a sign of how important this is might be that Elon Musk lapdog, David Sacks, who regularly pushes Russian propaganda exactly, came out and said that as part of any deal, Ukraine would be expected to give up all of the 4 oblasts Russia has illegally annexed. This includes a large amount of land Russia does not occupy, including major Ukrainian cities such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Why is all of this important? Because what people seem to be doing in both Europe and the USA is trying to make major concessions for Ukraine before any discussions even start. These are all giving up Ukrainian positions and leverage—while never, never asking Putin for anything. Scholz was happy to end Putin’s isolation and asked for nothing in return. Vance, Gabbard, Sacks et al are handing over parts of Ukraine, while all dismissing NATO membership—and one again asking Putin to do nothing.

Its either the stupidest form of negotiating possible (Scholz) or deliberately trying to weaken Ukraine and strengthen Russia under the guise of negotiations (You know who).

Its just amazing how much intellectual power Putin once again is showing over politicians in countries of NATO. His army is struggling, but once again his reflexive control is working overtime to help him and harm Ukraine.

The Three Groups of Trump Appointees

There seem to be three types of possible cabinet picks emerging from Donald Trump’s discussion—two of which are getting cabinet posts and one of which is definitely not.

The ones that have no chance of getting a cabinet post are clear—they are the consistent and strong friends of Ukraine; those who have tried to remain supportive of Ukraine over the last almost three years Trump himself made that very clear when one of the first things he did this last week was publicly announce that Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley would not be in his Cabinet in any position.

In other words, supporting Ukraine consistently and openly, seems to be an automatic black mark in the hunt for a Cabinet job. Its impossible, indeed, to find a Cabinet nominee who has recently argued openly for the continuation of aid for Ukraine, or indeed Ukraine’s NATO membership.

So with this group out of the way, there are two other groups that are being given jobs. The first are the Ukraine-abandoners. These are those who were supportive of Ukraine, sometimes very much so, at the start of the Full-Scale Invasion who have since pivoted hard to a Trumpite anti-Ukraine position..

The pivoters are people like Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Mike Hegseth, Mike Waltz etc. I have heard some people say that they are pro-Ukraine. Its far more accurate to say that they were pro Ukraine. Here is one example of how their quotes have metamorphosized.

Stefanik, for one, has recently pivoted quite hard on the question. When the full-scale invasion occurred, she was one of Putin’s greatest critics and Ukraine’s greatest friends, accusing the Russians of genocide and saying that Ukraine should get into NATO. However, lately she has become a Trumpite on Ukraine, refusing to support NATO membership when asked, or indeed the continuation of aid.

And I’m sorry to say that this pivoting group includes Mike Waltz (the incoming National Security Adviser). Some pro-Ukraine voices seem to have hope for Waltz. All I can say is that the closer its been to this election, the most Waltz has adopted a Trumpite-position on Ukraine. Here is one report of his behavior on the campaign trail.

But during an event last month, Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of the United States' aims in Ukraine.

"Is it in America's interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?" Waltz asked.

What’s interesting is that this group, which has been trying to instinctively align itself with Trump has for along time now been repositioning itself against Ukraine. The understand what Trump thinks and feels.

However, the sad thing is that this is actually the best group for Ukraine when it comes to those who are getting jobs. The last group is the long-term violently anti-Ukraine lobbyists. This group includes people like Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz and Robert Kennedy, who were attacking Ukraine, NATO, US-Aid for Ukraine from before the Full-scale invasion, and have kept true to that same path since. I gave some examples from Gabbard and Gaetz this week when I asked if Europe needed to start preparing for a Trump administration that would be closer to Putin than the democratic states of Europe.

What if the USA is about to Become an Ally of Putin?

However the real power in this group is not the Cabinet or formal office holder nominees. The real power is that it includes people of great influence around Trump personally, such as Don Jr, Vance and Elon Musk. Don Jr this week was his particularly measured self when he released an Instagram video mocking Zelensky, saying the Ukrainian president was soon going to be “losing his allowance.”

So there are two groups of voices around Trump and which are being proposed for his new government. There are the pivoters, who were pro-Ukraine but have abandoned that position over the last few years, and there are the always violently-anti-Ukraine faction. The pivoters have shown an ability to abandon a strongly held-view if it suits their personal interest, and the violently anti-Ukraine group feels empowered and in control.

All in all this does not look promising. Maybe things will be different when Trump takes power, and the mercurial man will end up taking a pro-Ukraine position. However, that will almost certainly not be because he will be hearing it from the people around him and in his government arguing Ukraine’s position (and I would argue the actual national interest position of the USA) strongly.

Russia will have trouble in the Second Half of 2025

There was a really interesting article published in Foreign Policy two days ago, that actually tried to analyze the future progression of the Russian economy based on data that is at hand. It was written by a Ukrainian economics Professor Alexander Mertens, and a colleague of mine at the University of St Andrews, Dr Marc Devore.

Also the data was collected by Alex Zagorodnyuk, who is a real up and coming researcher and writer.

I tweeted out a free link to the piece.

I wont repeat the article (please read it), but it makes a number of points that I’ve been trying to stress here which run in opposition to the main narrative coming out of the press about the great Russian behemoth. Russia is still producing considerably less than its losing, its economy has become so dependent on Defense spending that its hard to see what more it can do, it has actually been reliant on important outside sources (North Korean shells) that cant continue to be delivered in such massive quantities forever.

In other words, if Ukraine were helped and kept in the fight with the strong support of its partners, Russia would have real troubles in less than a year. The issue is that Ukraine might not be helped by its partners—and this could lead to higher Ukrainian casualties that will really hit Ukraine’s weakness (number of trained and effective soldiers—Mykola and I discuss that in the podcast).

So, once again, Ukraine can win this war, but not on its own. Russia remains a weak economic power that cannot expand production significantly. The choice we face, which will become increasingly a European one I fear, is whether we do want Ukraine to win?

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.