Ukraine's strategy under Trump, problematic signals from Ukrainians and parallels with WWI: an interview
Jerzy Pomianowski is a Polish career diplomat who has been based in Brussels for over a decade, leading the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an organisation that supports democratic and civil initiatives worldwide, including in Ukraine.
Pomianowski has a keen understanding of how Western attitudes toward Ukraine and Russia’s war against Ukraine are evolving.
Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda's editor, has spoken with Pomianowski, whose position is very close to realpolitik. It included points about the West's perspective on the war and potential "compromises" that might unsettle or even offend some in the Ukrainian audience. Rather than dismissing these viewpoints, they need to be understood and addressed.
Read more in the the full interview – "The West is preparing Ukraine for negotiations rather than victory."
Such a clear change of administration will make a difference. The only thing we know about Trump is that he is unpredictable. It is very difficult to guess what his next move will be.
This unpredictability means that it will be difficult to make any long-term plans.
It does not necessarily have to have negative consequences. Sometimes it is positive because if something is not working, you can quickly change strategy and jump to another deal and another deal.
A scenario where Trump hands Ukraine over to Putin, I don't consider a serious one.
We need to keep in mind that there is a strong perception among the military community within the US that the war with Russia in Ukraine is extremely important from a strategic point of view, that it cannot simply be given up for some small political deals.
But at the same time, the US interest is to make sure that Putin is not going out of this war stronger, because that would be against the US interest.
I have this extremely strong voice in my head that is related to 1918. Тhere were two people – French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and US General John Pershing – who were saying: we cannot stop now, we have to go to Berlin. Because if we don't do this, we will have a war in 20 years.
But the public, in France, in the US and the UK, were so tired of the war that they demanded an immediate ceasefire, immediate peace.
What we see today (here I am being absolutely blunt and down to the ground) is that the language of today's political discourse about Ukraine is a preparatory process for some kind of negotiations.
Not a preparation for victory.
That is the real danger.
If you have such feelings that would dominate in the public in Western Europe, in the US, then of course no politician will be able to overrule such pressure.
Because that’s how democracy works.
Here is where the role of Ukrainian society comes in. We at the EED believe that the whole of society in today's world – through social media, through advocacy campaigns, through different mechanisms – can communicate the will of the Ukrainian people to other societies.
But at the moment, if an ordinary Polish or Belgian person talks to their Ukrainian neighbour, they receive mixed messages which are not only about Ukraine’s readiness to defend itself. People hear things like "I don't know what's going on there," or "Corruption is still high, because you can pay and cross the border."
This kind of cacophony that comes from ordinary Ukrainians all accumulates to one general message: that Ukrainian society is getting weaker than it was at the beginning of the war. This harms Ukraine.
What we see today (here I am being absolutely blunt and down to the ground) is that the language of today's political discourse about Ukraine is a preparatory process for some kind of negotiations.
Not a preparation for victory.
That’s why NATO membership and EU membership are two elements that cannot be given up in any future negotiation. That will disable Russia’s ability to relaunch the war after 2, 3, 5, 7 years.
I hope that pan-European support will be strong enough to give Ukraine the ability to manoeuvre, to strike those short-term deals with the US whenever the situation allows, and to prepare a better negotiating position for the future so-called peace talks.