– The proposed summit between Trump, Putin and Xi on the war in Ukraine risks becoming a repeat of the 1945 meeting in Crimea, which divided Europe into democratic and communist spheres.
This could become a ‘Yalta 2.0’, writes history professor Brendan Simms in The Telegraph. Simms describes the summit planned for November as “a terrible idea”.
Yalta is the name of the resort in Crimea where the Big Three – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt – met to discuss the future of Europe in February 1945, whilst the Third Reich was on its last legs. The US and Britain agreed to the Soviet Union’s territorial demands, in particular the annexation of large parts of pre-war Poland, and Stalin’s demand for a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
The British had no choice; the war had cost too much – both economically and in human lives. The US wanted to concentrate on defeating Japan. Moreover, it had to be recognised that the Soviet Union had paid the highest price of all the Allies who had fought against Hitler’s forces. The result was the division of the European continent into a predominantly democratic Western Europe and an Eastern Europe under the Kremlin’s communist control.
The Cold War quickly became a reality, and in a famous speech at Westminster College in Missouri on 5 March 1946, Winston Churchill said that ‘an iron curtain had descended across the continent’.
– From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
The ‘Yalta myth’ is a convenient term for the process by which the victors of the war divided the spoils. The Soviet dictatorship encompassed half of Europe, and Simms now fears that history is about to repeat itself.
One is reminded of that dreadful meeting when one thinks of the proposed summit between Trump, Xi and Putin. This meeting – which apparently will involve neither Ukraine nor the Europeans – has no recent precedents.
Some fear that these three men will carve up the world amongst themselves, giving Putin the parts of Donbas he does not yet control, giving Xi free rein over Taiwan, and Trump some energy deals he hopes to capitalise on for electoral gain in the mid-term elections in early November. The fact that Yalta is currently located in Russian-occupied Ukraine only makes matters worse.
A peace agreement is, of course, not possible without Ukraine, but if Trump and Xi, in talks with Putin, can clearly set out Russia’s demands, whilst at the same time making it clear which demands they can accept, then Ukraine’s options will at least become clear. The final decision must, of course, be taken in Kyiv, but without support from the US, Zelenskyy does not have many cards to play.
Donbas and Crimea
Russia will probably be satisfied with full control over Donbas and Crimea. Putin’s forces are already occupying large parts of the Donbas. Two days ago, NTB reported that Kyiv had ordered families with children to leave the two key towns in Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Russian forces are now less than 10 kilometres from the cities, according to Ukrainian media.
Earlier in October, the authorities ordered the evacuation of children from certain areas, but the order has now been extended to cover both cities in their entirety.
The Russians currently occupy approximately 85 per cent of the region. Russia has threatened to take the rest of the region by force unless Ukraine agrees to hand over the whole of Donetsk voluntarily.
Before the war, Kramatorsk had a population of around 150,000 and has long served as a key supply hub for Ukrainian soldiers. Twenty kilometres away lies Sloviansk, which is also under constant attack.
If these two cities fall, Putin will be a significant step closer to the complete conquest of the Donbas.
Western Europe, led by Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin, has provided massive financial support for Ukraine’s war effort. However, they are providing borrowed funds in a situation where large parts of the continent are approaching economic collapse, and following Trump’s cut in US aid, Brussels & co. are effectively left high and dry.
In Oslo, the Labour Party government continues to pour huge sums into Kyiv. This is supported by large sections of the Storting and the vast majority of the media. Norway has thus moved from being a self-proclaimed – and rather unsuccessful – nation of peace to a war-mongering cash cow for the warring parties who claim that ‘weapons are the path to peace’.
‘A coalition of the willing’
In Paris and London, heads of state are dreaming of sending troops to Ukraine as part of what they call ‘a coalition of the willing’. This is regarded by the Kremlin as a pure provocation, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated that Russia will regard all NATO forces in Ukraine as legitimate targets.
Heads of state such as Emmanuel Macron and Andy Burnham, whose governments have completely lost control over both security and the economy in their own countries, and who do not have enough troops available to send, seem to believe that they can provide security for Ukraine – without the US backing them.
Without international support, Ukraine is finished, and Western Europe too is in grave danger if it continues down the same path. They are provoking both Putin and Trump, which could lead to them ending up in a conflict with Russia, without American support. Across the Mediterranean, the flow of migrants continues, meaning that tensions within the borders are only increasing.
Starmer: Planning for a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Ukraine is entering an ‘operational phase’
Division between East and West
In Kyiv, Zelenskyy and his team find themselves in a sort of Catch-22. Without financial support, the war is lost. At the same time, everyone understands that losing parts of the country is painful. But if Western countries choose to continue funding the war, and Kyiv declares itself willing to defend itself at any cost, the deaths, maimings, suffering and destruction will continue.
Within the EU, the divide between East and West has deepened. The rift began with Western Europe’s reckless immigration policy, which has its roots in Germany. Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen have led the way. Merkel opened the borders, and from Brussels, von der Leyen launched economic and political warfare against countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, which were absolutely not interested in letting in hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Africans.
Both Hungary and Slovakia are entirely dependent on Russian gas, and are facing massive criticism from other European countries which have themselves continued to import gas from Russia, having destroyed their own energy supply due to Merkel’s Energiewende and the widespread climate hysteria across the whole of Western Europe.
In fact, it is quite revealing that absolutely no top politicians in Western Europe are pointing out the significant increases in carbon emissions caused by immigration.
Moreover, few are willing to admit the enormous economic costs and the growing divisions that immigration leads to. Millions of foreigners must be supported by increasingly impoverished European taxpayers, and the migrants ‘repay’ this help with riots, destruction, looting, serious crime and even terrorism.
We are told that Russia is weak and that Ukraine is on the verge of winning the war. But the Kremlin still controls 6,000 nuclear warheads, and Ukraine has lost many of its best soldiers, who are now being replaced by reluctant conscripts kidnapped off the streets.
Simms continues to fantasise.
Ukraine is today a fully-fledged player in its own right – far more powerful than most European countries – and any solution must take this fact into account.
Before the war, Ukraine’s GDP was just over half that of Belarus. It has neither the money nor the weapons to wage war without help from other Western countries, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to replace the fallen soldiers. Corruption is rampant, and opposition to the war is growing amongst an exhausted population. The country lies in ruins, with neither enough people nor enough money for reconstruction.
Millions have fled the country, and few have any plans to return. Another diaspora has thus established itself in a fragile Western Europe.
A peace agreement at Ukraine’s expense does not mean that the country will automatically be thrust into the Russian sphere of influence. Unlike Poland in 1945, Ukraine is, for the most part, not occupied by Putin, and it remains an open question whether Putin has the will or the ability to occupy the whole of Ukraine.
Fortunately, we are now seeing a clear shift in the political landscape in Europe, so the days of Merz, Macron and Burnham are likely coming to an end. In just over a month’s time, there will be an election in Spain, and conservatives across Europe are keeping their fingers crossed that the socialist Pedro Sánchez will suffer a defeat.
The European elite seem to be most concerned about an impending right-wing surge and a Russian invasion. They are ignoring the fact that there are riots in French cities, in Belgium, Italy, Albania, Greece, Serbia and, next weekend, Berlin and 20 other German cities. London, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Oslo will follow suit in what is developing into riots across large parts of Western Europe. A European civil war is a real threat.
But in Budapest, nothing is happening, so from Hungary’s capital I can report: All quiet on the eastern front.
