Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday along with other Western political leaders to commemorate the third anniversary of the large -scale invasion of Ukraine of Russia.
It is an important symbolic moment and occurs less than a week after the public attacks of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump ruled out as a “dictator.”
Zelenskyy announced Trudeau’s visit on Sunday during a press conference. The Ukrainian president said that the prime minister is one of the 13 foreign leaders who attend a summit on peace and security for Ukraine, and hoped Trudeau would enlighten him to “what is happening with the relationship with the United States”
Washington and Moscow gathered to discuss how to put an end to war, an initial round of discussions that took place without Ukraine at the table and on the heads of European allies that Trump hopes to assume the burden of a possible military deployment of peace maintenance .
Trump made the end of the war in Ukraine one of his firm campaign promises in the bet of last year to recover the White House, claiming that he could end blood spill in one day. The notion was dismissed by Ukraine, Western allies and Russia.
The president of the United States suggested that Ukraine is responsible for the current war, “should never have begun” and could have avoided bloodshed making an agreement with Moscow.
The statements surprised the international allies and some Republicans, including former vice president Mike Pence, who resorted to social networks last Wednesday to denounce his former boss.
“Mr. President, Ukraine, not ‘began’ this war. Russia launched an unpaved and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The road to peace must be built on the truth,” Pence said in a Wednesday X.
Much of what Trump said last week repeat the Kremlin conversation points.
In question this week: Donald Trump interrupts the world order when he calls the democratically elected president of Ukraine as a “dictator” and apparently puts himself on the side of Russia in the war. Canada’s political leaders are presented as the correct answer to US aggression. And Justin Trudeau presents plans for high speed rail.
Bill Monahan, the main member of the center for the analysis of European policies in Washington, DC, said Trump has spoken a lot about peace through force in Ukraine, but seems to be “flourish rhetorical” without any real substance.
“Believe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is very happy to have been able to achieve one of its strategic objectives, which is to create disunity and division between the United States and their allies in the transatlantic relationship, “said Monahan during an online press conference last week, before the anniversary.
“But as we move forward and define what our goals are for negotiations, I think we will have to work very closely with our allies and Ukraine to make peace occur.”
At the moment, Russian forces control around 20 percent of Ukraine, mainly in the east and its southeast. Estimates of various Western and Ukrainian intelligence sources suggest that more than 800,000 Russian soldiers have been murdered or seriously injured, which makes war one of the most mortal conflicts for Moscow in recent times.
Last week, Zelenskyy said that 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the beginning of large -scale invasion, and another 390,000 have been injured in action. Western intelligence agencies have put that highest estimate.
The United Nations estimates that Russia’s invasion has cost more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians in their lives, and many observers wonder how much more time can the country endure.
“The biggest challenge we face [going forward] It is confidence in Ukraine, “said Lieutenant General retired from the United States Army, Ben Hodges, who spoke last week in a panel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington.
He said that the Ukrainians wonder what the United States is going to do and what the European powers will do against the billing of the agreements and the possible withdrawal of Washington.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he intends to end the war in Ukraine, but exactly how that could develop is in debate. Andrew Chang breaks down what Russia, Ukraine and the United States want a resolution, and how conflicting interests make their objectives incompatible. Images provided by Getty Images, Reuters and The Canadian Press.
“Are they going to be changed by a great agreement? Or we are going to commit to help defeat Russia, which is completely within our ability to do if we had the political will or are we going to force them to accept some types of settlement?”
Sam Greene, who is also at the European Policies Analysis Center, said those are the same questions as NATO allies are asked where the negotiations on Ukraine go.
More and more in the United Kingdom, and potentially in France, he said, the allies “are beginning to see the United States as part of the problem.”
And that, Greene said, will press to Europe to invent its own solution to the war at its door.
