The aftermath of one of the most undiplomatic – and notorious – White House meetings in recent history reveals a changed world.
Having berated Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for supposedly not wanting peace with Russia and failing to show sufficient gratitude to the United States, President Donald Trump has now paused all military aid to Ukraine. This equates to about 40 percent of the beleaguered nation’s military support. If the gap is not quickly covered by other countries, Ukraine will be severely compromised in its defense against the Russian invasion.
This has happened while the Russian army is making slow but costly gains along the front in eastern Ukraine. Trump’s goal appears to be to force Zelenskyy to accept a deal he does not want, and which may be illegal under international law.
New Zealand is a long way from that front line, but the implications of Trump’s unilateral abandonment of Ukraine still create a serious foreign policy problem.
Aside from its unequivocal condemnation of Russia’s actions, New Zealand has provided Defense Force personnel for training, intelligence, logistics and liaison to the tune of nearly NZ$35 million (around US$20 million). The government has also given an additional NZ$32 million in humanitarian assistance.
At the same time, New Zealand has supported global legal efforts to hold Russia to account at both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. With Trump undermining these collective actions, New Zealand faces some stark choices.
While a genuine ceasefire and eventual peace in Ukraine are the right aims, Trump’s one-sided proposal has involved direct talks between Russia and the United States, excluding all other parties, including the actual victims of Russian aggression. With eerie parallels to the Munich Agreement of 1938 between Nazi Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, peace terms could be dictated to the innocent party. Ukraine may have to sacrifice part of its territory in the hope a wider peace prevails.
In exchange, Ukraine may be given some type of “security assurance.” But what that arrangement would look like, and what kind of peacekeeping force might be acceptable to Russia, remains unclear.
If the current U.K. and European ceasefire proposals fail, Europe could be pulled more directly into the conflict. Since the Trump rebuff, European leaders are embracing Zelenskyy more tightly, wary of an emboldened Russia threatening other states with substantial Russian populations such as in Estonia and Latvia. European boots on the ground in Ukraine could escalate the existing war into a much larger and more dangerous conflict.
The complexities of this new reality are now spilling over in the United Nations. While the U.N. Security Council finally agreed on a broad statement in favor of a lasting peace, just what that might look like was the focus of opposing resolutions in the General Assembly.
On February 18, 53 countries, including New Zealand, voted in favor of a resolution condemning Russian aggression and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed, but the United States, Russia, Belarus, and North Korea voted against it.
