Former British Home Secretary Charles Clarke has expressed little faith that United States President Donald Trump’s “combination of bullying and flattering” will produce a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump, on April 17, presented Russia and Ukraine with a “final” ceasefire offer, which forces Kyiv to legally cede Crimea to Moscow, without offering it security guarantees.
“My picture from the outset, which is essentially pessimistic, is that Trump wanted his big moment and in the same way as with North Korea, he thought he could [coax Russia] into a situation,” said Clarke.
Trump had similarly tried to force North Korea into nuclear disarmament in 2019.
“I don’t myself see how [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy or Ukraine as a whole could ever concede de jure control of Crimea to Russia. They could concede de facto control, but Trump didn’t seem to take that distinction,” Clarke said.
“He’s shaken things up, but I think he’s been obviously far too credulous to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and to Russia in the whole process.”
Clarke spoke to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the 16th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe, hosted recently by Cambridge University’s Centre for Geopolitics, which Clarke co-directs with Brendan Simms, a professor of European geopolitics.
Can Europe face Russia?
The prospect of a possible ceasefire is rarely out of the headlines.
Over the weekend, Putin said Russia would engage in direct talks with Ukraine “without preconditions” – a rare offer throughout the conflict – after European leaders met Zelenskyy in Kyiv to call for a 30-day truce.
Ukraine and Europe have presented a ceasefire document, which, unlike Trump’s plan, makes no territorial concessions to Russia three years after it invaded Ukraine. The question is whether they are willing and able to back it with continued military effort if Russia and the US reject it.
“The scenario of a complete American withdrawal may be overly bleak right now, but it’s definitely a possibility,” said Simms.
Should Europe then offer Ukraine an independent security guarantee?
“I do think we should do that, but I think we should only do it if we are genuinely committed to going the full mile with Ukraine,” said Simms.
“I could quite easily see, for instance, a discourse in a country like Germany, which would say something like, ‘Well, it’s awful what’s happening in Ukraine, Trump is awful, [but] no we’re not going to do anything to help Ukraine, and we are going to use Trump as an excuse to walk away from supporting Ukraine’,” Simms said. “That is very much a discourse you’re beginning to hear in German public opinion.”
Both Clarke and Simms believed the Russian army’s ability to win an uncontestable military victory in Ukraine has been overestimated thanks to narratives touted by the Kremlin.
“There’s been far too much belief that the Russians have got an effective military and economic machine,” said Clarke, citing the Russian failure to take Kyiv in 2022 and losing control of the Black Sea to an adversary without a navy.
Russia’s territorial gains in Ukraine have slowed down dramatically, two separate analyses found last month.
The Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom estimated that Russian forces seized 143sq km (55sq miles) of Ukrainian land in March, compared with 196sq km (75sq miles) in February and 326sq km (125sq miles) in January.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, spotted the same trend, estimating Russian gains of 203sq km (78sq miles) in March, 354sq km (136sq miles) in February and 427sq km (165sq miles) in January.
This pattern of diminishing returns had started in 2024, a year when Russia wrested away just 4,168sq km (1,610sq miles) of fields and abandoned villages – equivalent to 0.69 percent of Ukraine, the ISW determined in January.
Those meagre gains came at the cost of 430,790 soldiers, the equivalent of 36 Russian motorised rifle divisions, outnumbering Russia’s losses in 2022 and 2023 combined, said Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence.
As Russia prepared to celebrate the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II, its losses in Ukraine were approaching the one million mark, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said.
Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify casualty tolls.
“They do have weight of numbers on their side, but weight of numbers only counts if you’ve got willing fighters,” said Clarke. “And there’s a great deal of evidence that there’s real problems for the Russian leadership in terms of the attitude of Russian troops and Russian positions.”
While Europe could ultimately step up defence industrial capacity, Clarke cautioned that Europe would nonetheless struggle to replace US intelligence, political coherence and command and control.
A European force for the Baltic
These issues have recently come to the fore, as Europe grappled with the possibility of fielding a peacekeeping ground force in Ukraine.
Simms argued in favour of creating it, but against deploying it in Ukraine as a peacekeeping force.
One reason is that European militaries are not trained for the drone warfare now being developed in Ukraine and will not be effective, he said.
“The other consideration is that the Ukrainian army is our most effective ally. If we deploy forces as part of a peace deal, which will end the war in Ukraine by definition and take the Ukrainians out of the conflict, we will end up in a situation where our mobile force, our only deployable force, the preponderance of it will be fixed in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin will no longer be fixed in Ukraine. He can pivot to face the Baltic states in the high north, and the Ukrainians will no longer be in the field. So that will be almost like … a self-inflicted wound.”
A European mobile force should keep its powder dry for deployment wherever Putin strikes next, said Simms, most likely in the Baltic states, while Europe helps Ukraine in long-range fires – drones and missiles – and provides air cover.
Russia’s psyops: Nuclear blackmail
Clarke said it is “absolutely possible” that Europe and Kyiv can win the war without Washington’s support, but warned of a “high risk strategy” should Ukraine “hold on so long that Russia would fall over”.
Europe and Ukraine could win if Europe overcame its fear of nuclear blackmail, said Simms.
Putin threatened the use of nuclear weapons from the outset, he said, but did not use them when Ukraine claimed back 20,000sq km (7,720sq miles) of its territory in September 2022, nor when Ukraine counter-invaded Russia in August 2024.
Yet fear of nuclear retaliation prevented Germany from giving Ukraine its 500km-range (310-mile) Taurus missile, which carries a 450kg warhead and impacts at high speed, devastating its targets.
“It’s not at all clear that if a power station in Moscow were destroyed by a Taurus, that [Putin] would use nuclear weapons. In fact, I think it is unlikely,” said Simms.
“But he has achieved through his rhetoric and through, I think, a misunderstanding of the nature of deterrence, a chilling effect on the West, which has cost the Ukrainians dear and has wasted three years that we had to sort this out – before Donald Trump appeared on the scene.”
