Ukraine and Europe Are on Their Own Now

It’s reasonable to be disappointed or worried — even disgusted — by the outcome of Donald Trump’s phone call with Vladimir Putin this week but not surprised. The US president didn’t fail to end this war, because he never tried.

His focus was from day one to achieve a reset with Russia that would deliver an economic bounty to the US. American participation in the war was an obstacle to be removed before that could happen, and doing so via a peace settlement — rather than Ukraine’s abandonment — was a better look. It wasn’t, however, essential.

“This was a European situation, and should have remained a European situation,” Trump said on Monday. So, with that cleared up, what now?

First, unless Congress forces Trump’s hand, he can leave the long, thankless task of mediating a peace settlement to the pope, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or whomever wants to take it on. In the meantime, he can focus on making money.

From Moscow’s point of view, this could hardly have ended better. Putin has made a vague new offer to begin direct talks with Ukraine and set his demands out in a memorandum. We can take a good guess at what that will include, because the Kremlin has repeated its conditions for peace many times. Now that Trump has left the building, Putin has less incentive than ever to reduce them: Ukraine would have to hand over unconquered as well as occupied areas of territory that Russia has formally annexed, forswear any ties to NATO and demobilize most of its armed forces.