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Between Syria and Iran, NATO and the European Union, the agenda will be packed next week in Helsinki when President Donald Trump will sit down with Vladimir Putin from Russia. There are so many people that the war in the east of Ukraine could end up being swept away, one of the many trading chips that Trump and Putin could put on the table
. That would not be good with Kurt Volker, the American diplomat charged with negotiating the war. But that would not surprise him entirely. "Many people have convinced themselves that, Oh, it's just a frozen conflict, when it's really not the case," Volker says. "He is literally fighting every night.Since Trump appointed him to the post of Special Representative in Ukraine a year ago, Volker has come closer to fighting in the East of the United States. Ukraine as any American diplomat.The veteran diplomat and former US ambbadador to NATO has no illusions about the reasons for this mbadacre, which began after one year ago. Revolution in Ukraine brought to power a pro-Western government in Kiev, Putin responded by sending Russian troops and paramilitaries to occupy large parts of the country, including his industrial belt of rust in the east. The ensuing conflict has killed more than 10,000 people, more than a quarter of whom are civilians, according to American estimates, and has displaced about 1.5 million more than any other conflict in the world. Europe since the Second World War.
These figures, underlined by Volker l But a briefing with TIME and several other media outlets in Berlin on Thursday is difficult to rhetoric coming out of the White House. While Trump prepares to meet Putin in Helsinki on July 16, he refused to rule out the possibility that the United States will recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, the first part of Ukraine that Russia seized in the spring of 2014. "We" "Trump told reporters when he was asked if he was considering such a step.
This statement, as well as the wider demotion of Ukraine down the international agenda of Trump, was particularly irritating for the Ukrainian government, whose leaders have tried with a desperate insistence to maintain a certain hold on the world's attention At a world leaders summit held in Munich in February, President Petro Poroshenko used his time on the scene to portray Russia as a "diabolical" occupier and to seek support from the United States and the United States. Europe
. was emptied before getting on the podium. Poroshenko waved a flag of the European Union, which had stolen, he said, on one of the front-line positions of Ukraine. "All that the Russian world is going to ruin and decay," he told a crowd of journalists and diplomatic staff.
The next day, when the President invited TIME for a brief conversation in his room, he looked exhausted after two days of meetings with US and European officials, the most important of which was canceled at the last minute on demand from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Please be my guest in Ukraine," said Poroshenko shaking my hand. "Maybe go to the line [front] and see for yourself what's going on there, I can organize it for you, because it interests me a lot."
Similar invitations have been addressed to many Western officials and diplomats in recent months.But the only one to have accepted from the Trump administration was Volker, who visited the war zone in mid-March. This seemed to leave a deep impression.As so many men from the area were enlisted or volunteered to fight, Volker spent most of his time talking to the women who were staying to "hold the property. together, "he says.
One of them lives in a part of the Ukraine was designated red zone, where roadblocks and military positions, as well as mines and unexploded ordnance, made the supply of food extremely difficult, drugs and other basic supplies for civilians. "It's been four years," says Volker. "And while this is going on and on and on, more and more things are breaking down."
With all the suffering that the conflict continues to cause, it seems surprising to Volker to see how rare it is outside the region. He often thinks in contrast to the time he spent in the 1990s negotiating the end of the war in Bosnia. "He seized European titles every day, people were indignant," he recalls, and the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany also spent a lot of time these negotiations and Bill Clinton, then president of the United States, hosted the summit in Dayton, Ohio.
Today, the US role in Ukraine is very different.In his public remarks, Trump avoided criticize Putin for ordering his troops to enter Ukraine Instead, he blamed the conflict of his predecessor, Barack Obama, while suggesting that the issue be dismissed in the interest of better relations with Russia
At first, Trump demanded that Russia be reinstated in the G7 club of industrialized countries, whose leaders expelled Russia precisely because of its attacks against Ukraine. has happened some chos There is a time when Russia is no longer there, "Trump told the group's summit last month in Canada. "I think it would be an badet to have Russia back."
This phrase – "something happened a while ago" – was Trump's way of describing a war that killed thousands of civilians and redrawn the borders of Europe's # 39; Is. Still, Volker says that there is a good side for Ukraine because White House actions have not always been in line with the president's rhetoric. Since Trump took office, his government has lifted an arms embargo on Ukraine that was put in place under President Obama; he also maintained and, in some respects, strengthened the sanctions imposed on Russia against Ukraine.
But none of this has brought the disputed region of peace closer together. "Nothing has really changed in four years," Volker says. "My impression is now that Russia has decided to dig for a while and not try to solve that." The conflict, though it is kept at a low level, may be useful to Russia not only for draining the resources of the Ukrainian government but extracting concessions from the West. "I think it's a tactic to create opportunities to exert influence," says Volker
. This tactic will be put to the test in Helsinki, and it could still play in favor of Ukraine. In exchange for a concession on another issue – the lifting of US sanctions, for example – Putin could accept that US-mandated peacekeeping forces support fighting in the east of the country. # 39; Ukraine. But given the lack of interest that Trump has expressed for this conflict, the President of the United States may also decide to endorse Russia 's claim on parts of the Ukraine that' s the only way in which the US is doing so. he occupied.
Volker refuses to guess which way he will go. What he hopes for is a clear directive, rather than contradictory messages, about what diplomats like him should do in Ukraine. "A good result of Helsinki would be a task badignment, a call from the leaders to say," Let that happen. Get a ceasefire. Put in place an armed force of the United States that will truly create peace. It could happen that way. But for Russia, this would mean giving up a powerful lever of influence, and Putin does not seem likely to exchange it for free.
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