"You Don’t Have The Cards Right Now."
King Charles is to meet Volodymyr Zelensky at Sandringham on Sunday in a rare and dramatic sign of royal support.
The King’s invitation to the Ukraine president came a day after Donald Trump sparked worldwide outrage by insulting and abusing Mr Zelensky at the White House.
And it is only two days after Mr Trump accepted an invitation from the King for an unprecedented second state visit to Britain – delivered to him personally by Sir Keir Starmer.
The king, of course, has no direct power over much of anything in the UK or anywhere else, and his utterances are normally limited to anodyne remarks on topics like the weather. Apparently Starmer feels Charles's prestige alone will mevertheless be sufficient to carry his program:
UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer said ahead of a Lancaster House summit on Sunday that Britain and France will work to craft a Ukraine ceasefire deal that would be presented to the United States.
Echoing the language of former U.S. President George W. Bush, the Labour Party leader said that London and Paris will seek to build a “coalition of the willing” to enforce a peace in Ukraine.
The UK and France have already committed to sending troops into the former Eastern bloc nation to act as peacekeepers, but other European nations, notably Italy, Germany, and Poland, have so far shot down the idea.
. . . The British leader said that he would work with French President Emmanuel Macron to craft a “plan” for peace in Ukraine that they would present to the United States.
Attempting to throw his weight around, President Macron appeared to demand that Europeans be given a voice at the negotiating table, saying per The Times: “If the United States settled a ceasefire solely with Russia, it would breach international law. For a permanent member of the UN Security Council, that would be a profound break.
The link continues,
However, despite the tough talk from Starmer and Macron, it is unlikely that they alone could actually provide the security garuntees needed to prevent Ukraine from being invaded in the future.
Former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, General Sir John McColl, said: “There is absolutely no way that the European nations without American support can provide any form of security guarantee for Ukraine.”
“It can either be a peace support operation, which means you simply report if there is an incursion, or it can be a peace enforcement operation, which means you fight if there is an incursion. If it’s the latter, then Europe simply does not have the capabilities to be able to do that on its own.”
So the US de facto position has been, and now has been expressed directly, that Ukraine can't become a member of NATO.
Stating that the U.S. does not believe NATO membership for Ukraine would be a "realistic" outcome of any negotiated peace settlement with Russia, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, today, called on NATO allied countries to increase their defense spending and take the lead in providing for Ukraine and Europe's security.
The problem is that Starmer, Macron, Zelensky, and King Charles don't have any cards. The NATO countries without the US aren't a credible military force. and they could not become one for generations. On the European continent without US boots on the ground, these are cards that Putin holds. Yet politicians like Canada's Chrystia Freeland propose a fantasy that NATO without the US could be a balancing force, presumably against both Putin and Trump:
I would start with our Nordic partners, specifically Denmark, which is also being threatened, and our NATO European allies. I would be sure that France and Britain were there who possess nuclear weapons and I will be working urgently with these partners to build a closer security relationship that guarantees our security in a time when United States can be a threat.
If they're fully aware they can't be a peacekeeping force in Ukraine without US guarantees, how can they think they can face off against the US without US backing? Right now, Starmer, Macron, and whatever reluctant allies they may have in the pro-Ukraine coalition have the problem of Zelensky. Opinion in the US is increasingly that Zelensky is the Gordian knot of Ukraine negotiations, and Trump's goal is now to cut the Gordian knot. Friday's confrontation simply made this more public; a week earlier, this was already the prognostication:
“Trump’s administration obviously doesn’t like Zelensky and does everything to let everyone know that,” said a Ukrainian political analyst and active-duty soldier who asked not to be identified by name.
“Recent remarks by the US president show that he wants Ukrainian elections ASAP and Zelensky replaced by someone more negotiable. This can be some who Trump and his allies trust: military leader or businessman.”
Washington insiders say there’s no obvious contender whom Trump would prefer if Ukraine were to hold elections, as Trump and his allies like Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk insisted this week should happen.
It's clear that Fiday's confrontation was something that had been simmering for some time, and it worked to Trump's benefit, since it will solidify domestic suppoprt for his Ukraine agenda. Neither Zelensky nor the pro-Ukraine NATO leaders have any cards to play -- certainly not the king.