Coalition of willing summit results align closely with Trump’s vision for Ukraine war — expert

Oleksandr Kraiev, an expert at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, said this in a comment to Espreso TV.

“Today's results of the coalition of the willing summit are much better than what we saw before. Because before, we saw completely disorganized French, who, although they put forward this initiative with the British contingent, then simply kept sidestepping the issue,” says Oleksandr Kraiev. "We saw the British, who constantly felt indecisive. We saw the Germans, who immediately said they were not ready to do anything. We saw other countries that simply sat on the fence and did not show much activity. We heard from Bloomberg that there are about 10 countries that are ready to send troops to Ukraine, but most are not ready. And now we are finally hearing about some results."

Kraiev says a peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine should not be expected soon. “Obviously, this is more of a British proposal — not a full-fledged contingent, but support in the air, on land, and on water,” he says. “Of course, I won’t say this is already a victory and that everything will be fine from now on. But at least now we have a strategy. We have moved from talks to a clear plan that can be supplemented and edited. In principle, we now have something to work with,” Kraiev adds.

According to the expert, the results of the coalition of the willing summit fit perfectly into U.S. President Donald Trump's concept. 

"As strange as it may sound, what is currently being discussed fits perfectly into the concept that Trump proposed to them. It is no coincidence that he constantly said that this is Europe's war, so Europeans must solve these problems themselves, while we are ready to sell weapons. The agreement to sell weapons is in place, and Europeans are ready to buy them. And now we see that Europeans are basically ready to supply this contingent and take care of its logistics. This fits perfectly into Trump's peace plan, which involves minimal U.S. involvement, but at the same time he is part of the process, he is a diplomat, he brought everyone together and he was the one who initiated all the negotiations. In other words, for his Nobel Peace Prize and for himself, this is, in principle, the ideal scenario," he said.

At the same time, Oleksandr Kraiev believes that it is time for Ukraine and for Europeans to stop thinking about how Russia will react to certain decisions.

"It is important to convey to our European allies that it is time to stop trying to solve an equation that has no solution: Ukraine must win, but Russia must not lose. If they try to play out this scenario again, we will get nowhere and end up with a new Minsk agreement, but on much worse terms and with much greater territorial losses," he emphasized.

• On September 4, following the coalition of the willing summit, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that 26 countries are ready to contribute to Ukraine’s security guarantees, including by sending their contingents.