The sadness of the Riyadh talks

Part one of two

Sometimes, it’s not a question of whether one should laugh or cry - but how to do both at the same time.

Even by his usual standards, Trump’s press conference last night was astounding. A ‘half baked’ negotiator could have secured a settlement in Ukraine years ago, said the President - ‘without the loss of much land.’

Of course, he himself would have done a great job.

‘I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land. Almost all of the land.’

At least that’s hypothetical. Who knows; maybe he’s even right.

It does not hurt to be generous - even though that’s not how Trump sees the world.

Asked about how it was conceivable, let alone appropriate, to hold peace talks in Riyadh without Ukrainian representation, Trump simply said: ‘They had a seat at the table for three years….when they are worried about not being seated, they could have made a deal long ago.’

It got worse.

‘Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,’ said the Trump.

I cut my teeth making sense of the Soviet Union before, during and just after its fall - so I learned a long time ago about how effective (if surreal) it can be to call black white, and white black.

But to hear the world’s most powerful man state that Ukraine started the war was dumb-founding.

The fact that he said this is instructive, though, for the insights it gives into who he has been talking to, whose voices he listens to - and who is comments are aimed at.

The fact that he has taken on Russian talking points is important. One, of course, is that the invasion was Ukraine’s ‘fault’. Another is that Zelenskyy is part of the problem. The removal of Ukraine’s president has been a campaign goal since the outset - partly (I’d suggest) because like Trump, Putin is a man who does not respond well to being mocked; and, like Trump, has a long memory when it comes to vengeance. Zelenskyy’s public mockery of Putin in 2014 stings.

If that helped fuel misjudgements about Zelenskyy’s capabilities and personal bravery and led Moscow to believe that Kyiv would fall in a matter of hours, then it is no surprise that Russian commentaries have consisently sought to undermine the Ukrainian leader.

One effective way of doing so has been to question his legitimacy as president.

Trump came to that yesterday. The key point was not that Zelenskyy is ‘down at 4% approval rating’ (which he is not), nor that Ukraine ‘has been blown to smithereens’, as the US President put it.

'Rather, it’s that

we have a situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine….The leader in Ukraine is down at 4% approval ratings. Wouldn't the people of Ukraine need to have an election? Ukraine is being wiped out

As I wrote at the weekend, getting rid of Zelenskyy is a priority for Moscow, not least since gives an opportunity for a new start in Kyiv - one that is favourable to Russia.

It is no surprise, then, that Russia has sought to cultivate useful idiots who can help push this agenda. In 2022, when Zelenskyy visited Capitol Hill to give an address to Congress, Tucker Carlson - whose access in the Kremlin reaches Putin himself - gave a blistering attack on the leader of a country at war, by criticising the fatigues that Zelenskyy has worn since the start of the invasion.

‘As far as we know, no one’s ever addressed the United States Congress in a sweatshirt before, said Carlson on his Fox News show, comparing Mr. Zelensky to ‘the manager of a strip club.’

This line proved popular among right-wing commentators. Zelenskyy’s choice of clothing was disrespetful and ‘an incredible insult.’

This went hand in hand with wider Russian efforts to push a narrative of Ukraine’s institutional weakness and corruption, that have also proved effective in framing understanding of the war, above all on the American right - where it does not take much to provoke the theme of of isolationism that has run deep in political thinking for more than a century.

So here we now are. The talks in Riyadh were no Yalta; as commentators around the world noted, they are a clear indication that we live in a world where ‘might is right.’

We had the canny, veteran Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, immediately get what he wanted by insisting that Russia would not accept peacekeeping forces from Nato countries in Ukraine under any peace deal. ‘Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable.’ That has been banked by the Russian negotiating team.

On top of that, said Lavrov (who is still currently sanctioned by the US Government), the US and Russia would appoint ambassadors to each other's countries as soon as possible and create conditions to ‘restore co-operation in full.’

‘It was a very useful conversation. We listened to each other, and we heard each other.’

As many commenators noted, the Russia delegation is made of the Moscow A Team - flush with experience, connections, talking points and an agenda. That makes a sharp contrast to the US side. It was not hard to see who got the best of the opening round.

Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund - described by Mikhail Zygar as Russia’s Jared Kushner, told Russian state TV there had been ‘the logic that existed under President Biden has been rejected.’ That’s a big win, because it means the death of the international rules based order.

What about the US then? What do Trump, Rubio and others want; and what can they get? Are they fools and stooges, or is there more to this than meets the eye?

I have a few ideas about this - and can see method to the madness. The US side is not simply shooting from the hip, lashing out at Kyiv or pandering to Putin. There is a logic - even if (in my opinion) it is not so much doomed as dead on arrival.

I’m going to write about that in a second post for subscribers later today - I’m learning that long Substacks can be too much to read in one go.

See you in a few hours….