British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Washington mission has ended in an obvious fiasco. He came to meet with US President Trump to persuade him to send American soldiers to Ukraine as part of Europe’s shared "peacekeeping mission to ensure peace and security."
"Starmer fell short of his top objective — obtaining an American security ‘backstop’ to protect Ukraine from further attacks after an end to Russia’s war," the American Bloomberg news agency writes in a report on Starmer's visit to Washington. "The British Prime Minister fell short of his ultimate objective of winning US security guarantees for Ukraine," the agency points out, insistently reiterating the same thought. But was it all about Ukraine's security actually?
Starmer seems to have been looking for safety rather than British and other European "peacekeepers", but stumbled upon Trump's stony face. "Trump sidestepped pressure from Starmer to provide US support for a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, calling the idea premature and saying it would need to wait until there was first a ceasefire in place," Bloomberg writes.
“I don’t like to talk about peacekeeping until we have a deal,” Trump said during the meeting. “Right now, we don’t have a deal.” “Still, even as Starmer said the UK was prepared to put boots on the ground — and jets in the air — it was unclear that he had moved Trump any closer toward providing the necessary US support to carry out those plans," the agency goes on to say.
Let's note that just a couple of days before Starmer, French President Macron visited Washington with the same mission. And he also failed to persuade Trump to send American soldiers to Ukraine. The US press noted that the two leaders had completely fallen out over the ongoing war. Their meeting at the White House saw President Trump refuse to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a "dictator," while French President Macron bluntly stated that "Russia is the aggressor."
Hard to notice that Europe features a massive information campaign against the POTUS in its political environment and media. And the one leading the way here is the United Kingdom, though seeking to stay out of the spotlight and doing everything by proxy, as has always been the case. President Macron acts as Britain's frontman to conceal the true beneficiary of undermining Trump's "peace plan." This is not the least explanation of the fact that Macron was first to arrive in Washington, as if preparing ground for Starmer's subsequent visit.
It is Britain that primarily advocates introduction of European "peacekeeping forces" into Ukraine, ostensibly aimed to ensure peace. Starmer tried to make this thesis the core of the latest Paris "mini-summit" of European nations, but Britain never enjoyed unanimous support from its participants. Germany, Poland, Italy, and Spain opposed any "peacekeeping missions" in Ukraine, pointing out to the risks of conflict escalation.
But Britain has managed to win over countries of Northern Europe and the Baltic that are ready to enter Ukraine and even fight with Russia, as evidenced by their most ardent militaristic anti-Russian propaganda and real preparations for war — constant military maneuvers, warm-up of civilians "for war or crisis," and even expansion of cemeteries for potential simultaneous mass burials in case of war with Russia. Sweden, for example, has even introduced this issue for national debate.
In fact, we deal with the fact that the British, backed by their Scandinavian and Baltic "allies", want to stake out a certain, probably substantial part of Ukrainian “bowels.” Recently, Kiev and London signed a secret "100-year partnership" agreement, which marked the most important moment in this whole story. No one knows the document’s exact contents but experts believe that it stipulates Britain’s access to Ukraine’s subsoil in exchange for security guarantees. In other words, Zelensky promised London what he initially denied Trump.
The issue of access to Ukrainian minerals must have been one of the agenda points for Starmer and Trump, although not touched upon during the final joint press conference. An indirect confirmation of the fact that it is Ukraine’s natural resources that are at stake for London is France’s unconcealed interest in Ukrainian minerals. It has stated that it expects access to them like the United States does. French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu has said on television that France is negotiating access to Ukrainian natural resources to ensure its military-industrial complex amid the "expanding the share of American interests" in Ukraine and US claims to Ukrainian mineral resources. Unlike the French, the British do not trumpet this from TV screens, making it part of their secret agreements with Ukraine instead.
Here it is, the moment of truth: the United States, France and Britain (and other "peacekeepers"?) are trying to carve up that country and stake out their selfish interests there even before the war ends. However, both the British and the French seem to have already gotten a kick up the rear from Trump. The one eager to take Greenland with all of its resources from Denmark hardly plans to share Ukraine, rest assured.
There is all the more reason for this as the agreement between Washington and Kiev on US engagement in using Ukrainian subsoil and other resources primarily presupposes American control over Ukrainian territory, while not directly referring to a military presence. Moreover, we talk about not only control of territories but Trump’s plans to move Ukraine under the aegis of the United States, making it a raw material appendage of its own.
In summary, the United States and Europe have started all but explicitly dividing Ukraine in an attempt to grab the bigger piece. However, they forget that those are partially Russia’s native lands, and European maps did not have Ukraine as an independent state in the early 20th century. Washington, Paris and London have sort of forgotten about it. And my gut tells me that they're all going to take a punch from the Russians at the end of the day.
And here is yet another conclusion to be made: there is no accord between the United States and Europe after Macron and Starmer’s visits to Washington. Everyone has agreed to differ. And Europe does not have any solution as regards Trump's willingness to lay hands on the whole of Ukraine and move the Old World aside.
Now, having talked to Trump and left Washington empty-handed just like Macron, the British PM has arranged for a new European summit, this time in London. The leaders of 18 countries are expected to attend it to discuss ways to stand up to Trump and to "save" Ukraine, or rather, to secure at least some profit from its natural resources.
And besides, the British establishment, followed by the political "elites" of France, the Baltic states and Norther Europe, have become so deeply mired in militaristic anti-Russian rhetoric that their only choice is to proceed with mantras about the "Russian threat" over and over again as the only justification for them to stay in power a while longer.
