The first point to make is that this deal is a carve up between Trump and Putin. It puts Ukraine in an invidious position and makes it hard to accept for its failure to include Ukraine in the negotiations.

With Trump threatening to hang Ukraine out to dry if it doesn’t accept the deal by Thanksgiving (perverse as that is, but what should we expect from a pervert), it is no wonder that Zelensky and European leaders are in a spin.

As details emerge of this deal, we can see Trump’s fingerprints all over it. The key points appear to be:

• Territorial concessions: Ukraine would formally recognise Russian control of Crimea and the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, while Russia would retain de‑facto authority over those regions.

• NATO status: Ukraine would be barred from joining NATO, though it would receive “unspecified security guarantees” from the West.
• Sanctions and economic ties: Existing sanctions on Russia would be lifted, and the United States would resume cooperation with Russia on energy and other industrial sectors.
• Energy arrangement: The United States would take operational control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and supply electricity to both Ukraine and Russia.
• Security guarantees: Western countries would provide security assurances to Ukraine despite the loss of NATO membership, aiming to prevent further aggression.
• Frozen Russian assets: These assets are to be used to help rebuild Ukraine, with the USA overseeing this and taking 50% of any profits made.

This smacks of the same sort of approach as Trump has exhibited towards Gaza. It takes no account of the views of the innocent civilians living in the areas being carved up. It treats the areas as little more than real estate and business opportunities, driven as ever by the greed and profit-motive that seems to be the only thing that motivates Trump to get involved in anything.

Of course, the citizens of Ukraine and Russia will naturally be relieved at the end of a war that has had such dire consequences in terms of loss of lives and damage to property, but it seems they will get very little from this deal.

The causalities to date are truly horrific. I have seen estimates ranging from 800,000 to 1 million dead on the Russian side, with 400,000 to 700,000 dead on the Ukraine side. There are tens of thousands missing and unaccounted for too. Add to this the injuries and long-term disabilities, the displacement of people from their homes leading to a mass exodus of refugees mostly into EU countries and the mental health impacts of all this and conscription, and the human costs are staggering.

And then there is the huge damage to infrastructure, homes, and the environment to consider. And all for what? Answers on a postcard please! It is easy to understand why the majority of Ukrainian and Russian civilians want a negotiated peace desperately.

But Starmer and the EU leaders are opposed. The official line is that this is because they are concerned for the Ukrainian people who should be involved in negotiations and who can’t be allowed to have sacrificed so much in vain. It is nothing to do with (officially) the massive rearmament programme and the convenient excuse to increase military spending while continuing to inflict austerity on their people. European leaders are now committed to getting themselves on a war footing and to continuing the expansion and strengthening of NATO. Ukraine is now the victim of a proxy war between Western Europe and Russia, to all intents and purposes. And Trump is lapping up all involved sucking up to him, metaphorically fellating him even, as he relishes effectively franchising out USA military operations in Europe while extracting great economic and political leverage. If he is to keep USA committed to NATO, it is going to be on his extortionate terms. Otherwise, he’s quite willing and capable of standing by as Europe crashes and burns.

Thus, for the time being at least, it is in the interests of Zelensky, the EU leaders and Starmer to keep the war going. Zelensky is in deep shit when the conflict ends. He has been haemorrhaging popularity across the country and faces a huge corruption scandal. He needs to win the war to survive and can only do that with NATO backing. The European members of NATO are more than happy to provide assistance and weaponry but are rightly wary of allowing it to escalate into full-blown war between them and Russia, mainly for fear of near inevitable nuclear escalation.

Things have reached something of a stalemate and Trump, ever the opportunist, sees now as a time to force the hands of Zelensky and Putin. That it will likely look similar to the terms on the table four years, rendering the immense losses since pointless, is just another layer of tragedy.

There had been violent conflict over the Donbas for years, with legitimate concerns in the Russian speaking population over rights and language. Russian long-standing opposition to the expansion of NATO was never properly acknowledged either. There is no evidence that NATO poses any sort of existential threat to Russia, but independent analyses (e.g., the Quincy Institute) note that NATO’s combined conventional forces, especially airpower and advanced missile systems, far exceed Russia’s current operational capacity. In a hypothetical full‑scale NATO‑Russia war, Russia would likely suffer decisive losses, which underpins its “existential” rhetoric. But it also underlines the USA’s critical role in determining the balance of power. Trump seems intent on maximising the leverage this gives him on both sides for his own benefit and what he perceives as the USA’s benefit.

Zelenskyy addressed the nation, saying Ukraine was faced with a choice of “losing our dignity or the risk of losing our key partner”. He spoke of an extremely difficult week ahead, and of unbearable pressure being put on Kyiv.

Trump, for his part, is in a hurry, reportedly keen to get a deal done before Thanksgiving next Thursday, and perhaps with one eye on the “Fifa peace prize”, apparently created solely as a gift to his ego, which he is expected to be given at the World Cup draw in Washington DC on 5 December.

As the Grauniad’s Shaun Walker put it a few days ago:

“For all the public bravado, there has been a private admission in some parts of the Ukrainian elite that a deal may need to be done sooner rather than later, even if everyone sees Moscow as a bad-faith negotiating partner.”

Thus, this may well prove to be Trump’s crowning achievement, not that he has any interest in the suffering born by the people on the ground or their futures ahead. Given that the region is now awash with weaponry, real long-lasting peace is highly unlikely. And given that the tensions and paranoia across Europe have been cranked up so high, we will continue to welfare budgets sacrificed for warfare spending.

As ever, it is the military-industrial complex and its doyens that are the only ones to gain anything from such conflicts.