Political instability across Europe leaves Ukraine vulnerable - Patrick Mercer

Crucially, several of the G7 delegates arrived with their political fortunes at home severely dented after the EU elections. Most notably, President Macron of France called a snap election in an attempt to shore up his own party’s position, meaning that it’s much less likely that he will now be able to deploy French troops to Ukraine.

In parallel, Herr Scholz of Germany’s own platform was rocked by right wing parties, most notably the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and it seems unlikely that the ruling coalition will be able to continue for much longer. Now, Germany’s position on Ukraine, which has never been steady under Olaf Scholz, will be even less dependable under a new, rightist regime.

More optimistically, on the margins of the summit, the US president and Mr Zelensky signed a ten-year security deal designed to entrench backing for Ukraine. The agreement is seen as proof that, as President Biden said, “collectively (we’ll) show Putin that he cannot wait us out, he cannot divide us and we will be with Ukraine until they prevail in this war”. Undoubtedly, it was also an attempt by the Democrats to secure long-term, strategic support for their ally against the increasing likelihood of another term for President Trump.

That threat was underlined by Donald Trump a week ago when he said that President Zelensky, “…. just left four days ago with $60bn, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60bn. It never ends.” Then he added “l will have (the war in Ukraine) settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect.”

Not encouraging words for Kiev, especially when a closer look is taken at what Mr Biden promised. In the small print of the deal is a provision that allows either side to end it having given six months’ notice. In other words, an incoming president can scrap the whole thing if he wants to - and there are a couple of other alarm bells which this agreement trips in my mind.

First, why 10 years? This sounds like another way of kicking Ukraine’s application to join NATO even deeper into the long grass as imminent membership of the Alliance would make a decade long guarantee pointless.

Then there’s Mr Biden’s use of the ambivalent phrase, “… until (Ukraine) prevails in this war”. There’s no thundering “until the Russians are driven from Ukraine’s lands” here, just a mealy mouthed “prevail”: what does that mean?

Well, Mr Putin issued his own demands just as the Swiss conference started saying that he would only negotiate if new Russian borders were recognised well to the west of the Dneiper river.

Should such an agreement come to pass a Ukrainian state would still exist, smaller, ravaged, depopulated, not a NATO member and still dependent on the West, but it would still exist. Some would say that might count as Kiev having ‘prevailed’, but this feeble word combined with the six month get-out clause looks mighty suspect to me.

Now, in the light of all this, I talked to a well placed Ukrainian official and, to summarise our discussion, he believes that Washington and Kiev are fast approaching an impasse. Whilst the current regime in America is content to pump weapons to its ally, both parties realise that there aren’t enough Ukrainian troops to use them.

The US regards universal conscription in Ukraine as the only answer whilst Kiev’s parliament is adamant that the call-up will not go below 25-year-olds. Western diplomats visiting Kiev are said to be dismayed by its vibrant nightlife and teeming young men whilst, scurrilously, it’s suggested that too many Ukrainian MPs have sons and grandsons under 25 to allow such a law to be passed.

Now, you can give as much credence to the comments of one man as you like, but a simmering, US impatience with Kiev may explain some of the weasel words coming out of the last two conferences and may illuminate the Swiss Foreign Minister’s comments when the Peace Conference wound up. He said that another summit could happen before the US elections in November and that Russia would be invited.

This all feels to me as if America will dump Ukraine sometime in the autumn just as she pulled the plug on Afghanistan in August 2021. But where would that leave the European nations upon whose continent Ukrainian blood is shed so freely? Perhaps the suggestion by NATO’s Secretary General that more nuclear weapons should be put on standby gives us a rather chilling clue?

Patrick Mercer is a former MP for Newark and Army colonel.