Ukraine, by contrast, would likely mobilise whatever resources it has left to try to hold on to territory inside Russia as a bargaining chip in future negotiations and push back, or at least hold, the current front lines.
Regardless the outcome of either side’s efforts, none of this bodes well for the humanitarian crisis already brewing in Ukraine.
WILL RUSSIA ABIDE BY ANY PEACE TERMS?
A ratcheting-up of the fighting in Ukraine is also likely to strain relations between the US and its allies in Europe. Here, the fear is that Trump will likely make deals with Russia over the head of its EU and NATO allies and threaten them with abandonment.
This would undermine the longevity of any deal with Moscow. Since the start of the invasion, no one has been convinced Russia would stick to any brokered peace terms.
The relatively dismal state of European defence capabilities and the diminishing credibility of the US nuclear umbrella could not but encourage Putin to push his imperial ambitions further once he has secured a deal with Trump.
If the US, by then, were to have completed the strategic withdrawal from Europe that Trump envisages in order to focus more on competition with China, an unconstrained Putin might take his gamble beyond Ukraine and threaten NATO directly.
If it came to that, Trump could find his actions described once again as “historic” – as the US president who repeated the mistake of former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 who thought he could make a deal with Nazi Germany that would bring “peace in our time”.
Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham and Head of the Department of Political Science and International Studies.
