Yesterday’s much-anticipated summit in Washington, which saw a host of European leaders accompany Volodymyr Zelensky to The White House for talks with Donald Trump about achieving peace in Ukraine, has been talked up optimistically by all who were present.
However, with Donald Trump today ruling out American boots on the ground as part of any security guarantees for Ukraine, and Zelensky ruling out Vladimir Putin’s offer of a bi-lateral meeting in Moscow - two of the key takeaways from the meeting - was anything really achieved in Washington?
On today’s Daily T, former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace tells Camilla and Tim that the summit was “relatively pointless” and “nothing really came of it”. He makes the point that Donald Trump has never applied serious pressure on Putin - such as through the increased use of economic sanctions - to bring him to the table, as well as outlining his worry that Trump will end up rewarding Putin with “ground that he hasn’t already taken”.
Wallace also worries that any security guarantees will end up “policing Ukraine in a frontline that suits Russia”, which would “fix our forces”, allowing Putin to then “go off and re-arm and pose threats elsewhere on the European continent”.
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