Timothy Ash / Translation by iPress
Senior strategist at RBC BlueBay Asset Management and associate fellow at Chatham House, Timothy Ash, warns that a possible trilateral meeting of Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Putin without the participation of Ukraine and Europe could turn into an attempt by major powers to agree on spheres of influence at Kyiv’s expense. In his opinion, the policy of concessions to the Kremlin has not brought peace closer, but has only strengthened Putin’s belief that the Western coalition’s support for Ukraine will eventually collapse. Ash believes that Zelensky cannot agree to the surrender of Donbas without truly strict security guarantees, and Europe, in the event of a new American-Russian rapprochement, must be ready to accelerate the creation of an autonomous defense capability. At the same time, he sees room for Europe to engage diplomatically with China, convincing Beijing that any deal on Ukraine without Ukraine and Europe itself will be neither sustainable nor beneficial to China.
The main news is the report of a possible trilateral meeting of Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin, where they could conclude a “peace” agreement regarding Ukraine. According to an article in the WSJ, Putin suggested to Trump such a mini-summit during their conversation on October 9 – the same conversation during which a Russian-American agreement on diesel fuel was reached. The idea is for the three leaders to meet on the sidelines of the planned APEC summit on November 18-19 in Shenzhen, China.
Trump’s administration has not yet confirmed whether he has agreed to Putin’s proposal for the summit. But the situation is alarming, as this is preceded by a long list of Trump’s moves that very much resemble a policy of appeasement towards Russia: from bringing Putin back from Western political isolation and inviting him to a summit in Anchorage to the aforementioned diesel fuel agreement and last week’s announced delay of sanctions imposed by the Lindsey Graham Act. Added to this is the fact that the US seems to have limited intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which weakened its defense and cost lives.
Trump has attempted to explain all this by stating that he does not want to do anything that might prompt Putin to abandon peace negotiations regarding Ukraine.
The harsh reality, however, is that Trump has already formed a clear and consistent behavior pattern: he repeatedly avoids taking firm actions against Putin throughout his entire second term and even before. Yet numerous rounds of peace talks, including those led by Witkoff and Kushner, have yielded very little. It is worth remembering that Trump said that agreeing on a peace plan for Ukraine would be easy, and he could achieve agreement from both sides within weeks of returning to office for a second term; then the deadline was Easter 2025, and then the end of 2026. Now we are approaching the end of 2026, and the policy of appeasing Putin seems to have yielded absolutely nothing. Even worse: in my opinion, it has only encouraged Putin to prolong the war, as he believes that under Trump, the Western alliance supporting Ukraine will inevitably collapse, and all of Ukraine will fall into his hands. And that has always been Putin’s ambition.
It’s sad that European leaders, it seems to me, have finally—and too late—realized that appeasing Putin leads nowhere and only results in further hostile actions from him and new demands for concessions and territories. This only leads to further war, and unfortunately, it is Ukraine that pays for this with blood and lives. Now Trump, it seems, is simply repeating the previous mistakes of Schröder, Hollande, Merkel, Macron, and others.
The latest gift to Putin is the embodiment of his most secret dream: a summit of great powers, where, as he imagines, Russia, China, and the U.S. can do what great powers usually do—divide the world into spheres of influence. For Putin, this would be “Yalta-2.” Trump either does not know history or is indifferent to the fate of Ukraine and Europe. For Trump, victory already lies in the mere fact of appearing on the same stage with Xi and Putin and in entering the history of summits—though, I would add, rather with shame, as happened with Chamberlain in 1938 over Czechoslovakia.
The only problem for Trump with this “Yalta-2” is that without the representation of Ukraine and Europe, I do not see how it can bring true peace to Ukraine.
Trump may agree with Putin’s conditions that Ukraine should give the rest of Donbas to Russia, but I do not see Zelensky agreeing to this unless Trump offers ironclad security guarantees: if Putin violates such an agreement, the U.S. will enter the war with Russia to protect the rest of Ukraine. Trump will never provide such guarantees, but even if he did, I don’t think Ukrainians would believe them: they do not trust Trump and generally do not trust such assurances after being let down with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994.
Ukrainians also do not trust Putin because they quite rightly believe that the goal of this war was never just Donbas—Putin sought to conquer all of Ukraine. Therefore, they assume that once they give up their fortified defensive positions in Donbas, which they have bravely held for 12 years, Putin will occupy them and move further into Ukraine.
Politically, for Zelensky, ceding Donbas without serious security guarantees—and most likely without NATO or EU membership—would be political suicide at home. This would likely provoke a social and political revolution (remember the Orange Revolution and then Euromaidan—Ukraine already has such experience) or even a coup, which would destabilize the country to Russia’s advantage. That’s why Putin continues to demand what he clearly knows Zelensky cannot seriously agree to—the ceding of Donbas.
So, if the trilateral summit in Shenzhen takes place and Trump, Putin, and Xi agree on the dismemberment of Ukraine, Zelensky will most likely reject such an agreement, and Ukraine will continue to fight. Then the responsibility to enforce this agreement will fall on Putin. But I do not think his army will be able to take what Trump “gave” him. If after 12 years of exhausting battles it still cannot capture Donbas, why should we believe that one stroke of Trump’s marker will change anything? For Putin, there is also a downside: then Ukraine will no longer be bound by any restrictions in this war. Ukraine will almost certainly be interested in maximum escalation—fully transferring the war to Russian territory and carrying out massive strikes with long-range drones on Russia’s energy infrastructure. This is unlikely to suit Trump or Xi, as it will have a serious impact on global markets.
Unfortunately, in most of the likely scenarios, Ukraine’s prospects look bleak, in my opinion, primarily due to Trump’s unsuccessful handling of the peace process regarding Ukraine. One scenario suggests that Putin will continue to believe he can take whatever Trump offers him in China, demand more, and bet on a prolonged war until the French presidential election, hoping that if Le Pen wins, European support for Ukraine will collapse. Another scenario is that Ukraine rejects any peace agreement signed by Trump, Xi, and Putin in Shenzhen, but will be forced to continue fighting without US support, and probably with European support, which will find it increasingly difficult to provide.
Xi and Europe to the Rescue?
Trump and Putin probably want to exclude Europe from any peace negotiations regarding Ukraine. Xi might too. But looking more broadly, would Xi want to risk signing a peace agreement that neither Trump nor Putin can easily and quickly implement, which might lead to escalation from Ukraine and turmoil in global markets while also irritating European trade partners? Possibly not. Europe should remember that it has its own agency and convey this to both Trump and Xi. Whatever is agreed upon in Shenzhen, Europe is interested in continuing to support Ukraine: given the existential threat from Russia and the effective disengagement of the US under Trump from protecting Europe, Ukraine currently gives Europe the best chance to buy enough time to develop its own autonomous defense capability.
Europe must communicate to China that peace in Ukraine will not happen without its involvement in peace negotiations, and that Europe will not view China favorably if, in Shenzhen, it effectively capitulates to Trump and Putin in matters of Ukraine and European security. Moreover, I assume that Xi himself would not be too favorable towards any Trump-Putin agreement regarding Ukraine if it paved the way for new special relations between the US and Russia—a sort of “reverse Nixon,” ultimately aimed against China. Therefore, in my view, China and Europe have a shared interest in jointly preventing a new political “friendship” between Trump and Putin from being established at the expense of Ukraine.
While leveraging China’s interests in the Ukrainian issue, Europe must simultaneously recognize that Ukraine is existentially significant to it to such an extent that it must follow Zelensky’s example and clearly explain to Trump what yielding Ukraine to Putin would mean for transatlantic relations. European leaders must bluntly say: this would mean the end of NATO, and Europe will be forced to sharply accelerate the development of defense capability separate from the US. American companies would risk losing lucrative defense contracts they have become accustomed to receiving. This would also mean that Europe would no longer be a natural ally of the US in its ongoing struggle with China for global leadership, and European defense companies would begin to compete more aggressively with American ones. Ultimately, this would mean job losses in the US, long-term harm to the American economy, and, eventually, the country’s security. Zelensky has already begun telling the American authorities the truth directly—perhaps it’s time for Europe to do the same.
Collage: RBC-Ukraine
