The confrontational meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Donald Trump (and Vice-President J D Vance) has dominated the news bulletins since the day of the meeting on Friday, February 28. The confrontation caused President Trump to say laconically that it would make for good live television!

According to media comments in the countries that, traditionally, are allies of the United States, Trump overreached his authority and humiliated Zelensky – a process that started when a reporter commented on Zelensky’s dress code in front of Trump. Although Zelensky’s way of dressing is uncharacteristic and, at times, inappropriate, these comments certainly suggest that America’s allies are firmly behind the Ukrainian President and his country, even accusing Trump of setting him up for failure.

At the heart of the problem was Zelensky’s insistence that Ukraine must continue to fight against the aggressor nation, Russia, and that the United States should offer security assurances to guarantee the success of any peace deal. However, Trump made it clear that he wanted to achieve an immediate ceasefire, and any suggestion or insistence to continue the war would make this goal impossible to achieve.

The American administration also viewed Zelensky’s approach to the war as involving a lack of gratitude for the assistance provided by the United States during the conflict, estimated to be around US$200 billion. In the Oval Office, Zelensky contended that Ukraine must continue to fight because his country is in great peril, and that his allies, including the United States, have a moral obligation to stand by Ukraine.

Following the kerfuffle, the anticipated minerals deal – a deal that offered great economic benefits – between Ukraine and the United States did not proceed and Zelensky left Washington DC to attend a hastily organised summit of European leaders in London. The UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, received the Ukrainian President with an affectionate embrace and the 18 assembled European leaders treated him as a heroic celebrity. They repeated their bizarre offer to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to repel the aggressor. In a press conference, Starmer even indicated his willingness to lead a ‘coalition of the willing’ and to commit boots on the ground and planes in the air to police a ceasefire.

As Zelensky’s infamous visit to the United States contrasts with his enthusiastic reception in the UK, it is appropriate to ruminate on the different priorities of President Trump and the European leadership.

It is obvious that, in continuing the conflict and slaughter, hundreds of thousands more soldiers will die, thereby decimating Ukraine. Of course, as is well-known, Putin is the aggressor whose army invaded Ukraine but, whilst it is apposite to condemn Russia’s aggression, it is also necessary to distinguish between the causes of the conflict, on the one hand, and the disastrous war which is the result of the causes, on the other. This is important because now the media only focuses on the war and almost never considers its underlying causes.

Of course, it can be argued that no causes, however clear and compelling, will ever justify a large-scale aggressive ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine. Nevertheless, a consideration of the causes of the conflict may help to put the conflict in perspective and, more importantly, may contain the seeds germane to a cessation of hostilities, thereby lifting the putrefied smog from the battlefields. The point is that, in encouraging Ukraine to keep on fighting, the possibility of a lasting peace is simply made impossible, and soldiers keep on dying. The European leaders, in supporting Ukraine unconditionally, fuel this unending cycle of death, misery and deprivation, and also make their own populations poorer and less secure in the process.

The American reaction to the Zelensky-Trump clash suggests that public opinion in the United States objects to an unconditional extension of aid that would prolong the suffering, misery, and dying. Trump, in saying that ‘Ukraine does not have the cards’ is surely aiding the peace process because without American aid, which has now been paused, Ukraine would not be able to sustain its military effort.

The legacy media has interpreted Trump’s stance as a turnaround in American policy that can only favour Putin. But is that the correct interpretation? Does it mean that, in withholding aid to Ukraine and insisting on a ceasefire, the Americans hand victory to Russia? No, because a negotiated settlement would need to follow a temporary ceasefire. As any negotiator knows, such a settlement is not possible if one party insists – in this case Ukraine – on continuing the devastating war.

Opponents of peace negotiations argue that Ukraine would have to relinquish territory that it lost during the war – an outcome abhorrent to Ukraine. Although such an outcome would be undesirable for the Ukrainian government, realistically, it may be the price to pay for peace. In any event, most people in the occupied territories are ethnic Russians and their right to self-determination under international law should be considered in any peace negotiations. Perhaps it might be possible to agree that these territories become self-governing provinces of Ukraine?

The European leaders have also advanced the claim that, in continuing the fight, Ukraine would be saving its ‘democracy’ from totalitarianism. This is a deeply contestable proposition. After all, Zelensky has cancelled democratic elections scheduled to take place in 2024. Proponents of the cancellation might say that this was also done by Churchill in the second world war, but unlike Ukraine, Churchill invited the Opposition to become part of a unity government and committed himself to elections following the defeat of Nazi Germany; these elections, held in July 1945, resulted in a resounding loss for Churchill’s Conservative Party. By contrast, in March 2023, the Zelensky government effectively concentrated its power by banning all opposition parties. In addition, television channels were nationalised and state-controlled, citing martial law as an excuse.

The government of Ukraine is known for shutting down the media, for arresting political opponents, for the assassination of journalists, and for banning the Russian language in education for Russian speakers, which violates the rights of ethnic Russians who comprise half of the Ukrainian population.

If that was not bad enough, the Ukrainian government fatally struck a blow at freedom of religion on the ground that Orthodox churches were demonstrably used as spy centres for Russia. While some churches and monasteries were indeed traditionally affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church and may well have harboured enemy forces, the penalising of all churches for alleged collaboration with Moscow constituted a hard-fisted approach to religious freedom.

Security forces in Ukraine regularly raid churches and arrest their clerics on accusations of treason. Since February 2022, churches in Ukraine have been stormed, closed, and destroyed. At the same time, the mobs who organise violence in churches are protected by the Ukrainian authorities. The involvement of the Azov movement in these violent actions against Orthodox priests is particularly disturbing. It has been alleged that some members of the Azov adherents embrace neo-Nazi imagery and practices. In an open letter dated April 12, 2023, and addressed to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Sylvester, vicar of the Kyiv Metropoly and rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary, argued that law enforcement authorities directly participate in this state-organised violence against the Church. According to him:

The right to freedom of conscience and religious beliefs is being openly violated in Ukraine. It is quite obvious since the end of 2022, the Ukrainian state has set a course for the gradual destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The government of Ukraine has also adopted laws which state that only books published in Ukrainian or ‘the Indigenous languages of the European Union’ can be published in the country. Since the beginning of Euromaidan in late 2013 the Russian-speaking segment of the Ukrainian population has been brutally repressed and marginalised. As one Ukrainian politician candidly stated: ‘Good Russians do not exist.’ So, when Russian troops crossed the border to protect the Russian-speaking majority in the east, the Ukrainian government understood this to be an opportunity for a more radical, uncompromising transformation of the whole country in their image and likeness on a scale that was impossible before. The war helped to silence the voices of discontent. The ultimate goal, writes Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian-born researcher at the Freie Universität in Berlin:

…is the eradication of anything related to Russia from the Ukrainian public sphere, including the removal of Russian-language books from libraries, the ban on teaching Russian in schools, even in the predominantly Russian-speaking cities like Odesa, and even a ridiculously obscurantist attempt (which passed the first reading in the Ukrainian parliament) to ban the citation of Russian and Russian-language sources in science and education. Add to this the banning of political parties, including some of Ukraine’s oldest parties which have represented the ‘Eastern’ camp for decades, and further repression of popular opposition media and bloggers stigmatised as ‘pro-Russian’, even when they expressed no sympathy for the invasion.

As can be seen, contrary to what the European leaders believe, Ukraine is not a beacon of democracy: the adoption of laws aimed at de-Russification of Ukraine is, at least potentially, inimical to the basic tenets of a democratic country that truly values the protection of basic human rights. Besides, Ukraine is universally identified as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and certainly the most corrupt country in Europe. Journalist Leon Kushner, a Jew raised by Holocaust survivors from Ukraine, who regularly contributes to The Jerusalem Post, comments:

Ukraine is not a democracy and never has been. It is as corrupt as Russia or perhaps more so. Definitely more antisemitic. Since 2014, Ukraine has become the world’s most popular money-laundering state.

Finally, it is important to consider that attempts at continuing the tragic war may well have unsavoury geopolitical implications for Western countries. In not agreeing to a ceasefire, Ukraine inevitably drives Putin further into an alliance with a powerful China, that, increasingly, is threatening the West, as evidenced very recently by the military drills off the coast of Australia.

In their infamous meeting, Trump accused Zelensky of toying with a third world war, which could be the possible (or even likely) outcome of continuing to fight, especially if Nato were to send troops to Ukraine. The desire of Ukraine to join Nato would have to be a topic for discussion in the negotiations because Russia sees the acquisition of Nato membership as a direct challenge to its sovereignty.

Of course, having elements of the most powerful military alliance in the world only five hundred kilometres from Moscow would naturally change Russia’s strategic situation in unprecedented ways. If Russia did not react, it could lead China, the new global superpower, to swallow up the entire country’s Far East and Siberia. A greatly weakened Russia would also likely lose the North Caucasus and the Volga region to the growing Muslim populations. As noted by Dr Nina Khrushcheva (international affairs professor) and Jeffrey Tayler (a contributing editor to The Atlantic, who has reported on Russia for Foreign Policy and National Geographic):

Russia’s behaviour vis-à-vis Europe and the United States may amount to less a sign of aggressive intent and more a defensive reaction to the fear of encirclement. After all, Nato has expanded to Russia’s borders and plans to one day induct Ukraine and even Georgia, another former Soviet republic, the Western aspiration of which the Kremlin tried to suppress in 2008. Such fears of ‘Europeanisation’ run counter to Russia’s imitation of Europe since Byzantine times. Of course, they have been borne out by history with, three times in the past 210 years alone, the country having suffered invasion from the West.

Hence, it is incredible that Europe and its sanctimonious leaders would even consider a continuation of the conflict for as long as it takes to be an inspired option for Ukraine.

A rational understanding of the contrasting events in Washington DC and London thus suggests that not President Trump, but the European leaders have overreached their power.

Gabriël A. Moens AM is an emeritus professor of law at the University of Queensland and served as pro vice-chancellor and dean at Murdoch University.

Augusto Zimmermann is a professor of law and served as associate dean at Murdoch University. He is also a former commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia.

Zimmermann & Moens are the authors of The Unlucky Country (Locke Press, 2024).