Andrew Korybko
Poland and the Baltic States would never voluntarily
agree to any military-security compromises with Russia, they’d have to be
coerced into them, and a European envoy present at the talks where such
Russian-US compromises on the post-war security architecture are agreed to
could legitimize that
Trump’s Special Envoy to
Russia Jared Kushner declared after
the newly resumed trilateral talks on Ukraine in Abu Dhabi that “If Europe
could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger
achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation.” He
had earlier met separately with
representatives from the EU, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK who
traveled to the premises but didn’t participate in the trilateral talks that
the US mediated between Russia and Ukraine.
Zelensky echoed
Kushner’s call by demanding that Europe appoint a representative before the
month is over. In his words, “I think that in November, not later, we need to
accept who will represent Europe in negotiations. It will be better because
they will get [a] mandate for negotiations and they will get a mandate from all
Europe, all this coalition.” For as hopeful as he is that someone will receive
such a mandate, no European envoy can realistically represent the entire bloc’s
interests vis-à-vis Russia.
Its several dozen states are much too divided over Russia for them all to agree on the post-war European security architecture that Kushner has been tasked to negotiate and the likely parameters of which were detailed in the preceding hyperlinked analysis for those who aren’t already aware of them. In particular, anything that even remotely complies with Russia’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 that were rejected by the US and NATO at the time would be objected to by Poland and the Baltic States.
.jpeg)
