An apparent thaw in relations between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky drew rare smiles in Whitehall on Wednesday morning as UK officials considered what the latest pronouncement from Washington means for the future of a peace deal in Ukraine.
Over breakfast, British diplomats were digesting news announced by the US President to Congress on Tuesday night that Kyiv is ready to sign a rare earth minerals deal with the US. The news came after days of intercontinental visits and phone calls co-ordinated in Europe by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.
But even as relations between Trump and Zelensky appear to have marginally improved after Friday’s Oval Office slanging match, they are nothing compared to how the US-Russia détente has sped up in recent weeks.
Alongside pausing military aid to Ukraine, the White House has stopped offensive cyber operations and information campaigns against Russia. Meanwhile, efforts to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs have been disbanded. Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top Trump administration officials visited Saudi Arabia last month to start peace negotiations with Russia and have expressed support for Russia rejoining the G7.
On Wednesday it also emerged that America has severed intelligence-sharing with Kyiv in what could be a huge blow to Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from incoming missiles.
Meanwhile, Moscow has been brought back again into the conversation. “We’ve had serious discussions with Russia,” Trump told Congress on Tuesday evening. “Then I’ve received strong signals that they are ready for peace. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? It’s time to stop this madness.”
Trump has repeatedly said it is in the US’s national interest to “get along” with Moscow and cast doubt on the value of institutions providing international security architecture post-Second World War, including Nato and the European Union.
Trump’s first term was overshadowed by former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which Trump dismissed as the “Russia hoax”. No wonder the previously reserved Conservative MP Graham Stuart made the defining remark of his career when he mused on X on Tuesday: “We have to consider the possibility that President Trump is a Russian asset.”
With bald understatement, Stuart’s view is not shared by the Government. It’s nonetheless also fair to say that the UK is not rushing to play catch-up with the US’s pro-Moscow outlook.
“The UK is not going to reach out to Russia publicly at all; it’s very much a US thing. Our priority is to stand with Europe,” a UK Government source said. Trump also doesn’t want Europe getting involved in dealing with Russia. “He doesn’t want his pitch queered. He wants his deal and maybe then his Nobel Peace Prize,” the source added.
That’s not to say UK-Russia discussions have halted in the background. Key figures include Yuri Ushakov, who was Russia’s ambassador to Washington from 1998 until 2008 and remains well-connected and internationally influential.
Meanwhile, the pained-looking foreign minister Sergei Lavrov does a good line in storming out of rooms and humiliating his political opponents, as former foreign secretary Liz Truss found to her cost during an icy 2022 meeting in Moscow. But the real diplomacy is done in private.
A consistent backchannel of communication has always been steered by the UK’s national security adviser and Vladimir Putin’s securocrat Nikolai Patrushev. “He is the backchannel,” a Whitehall source said. Wherever there is a ready-made climate for negotiations in a neutral territory, perhaps Switzerland, maybe Turkey, there Patrushev can be found.
After the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, over 150 Russian diplomats were expelled across Europe, with the number remaining in Britain down to single figures. But there remains an embassy both in London and Moscow to negotiate international affairs from issues ranging from Hamas to Hezbollah and everything in between.
That non-public backchannel of communication has also been useful in de-escalating tensions that could otherwise have spilled into the wider domain. Alongside other allies, the UK can make the Russians aware that they are being watched and tell them to nip any aggressive behaviour in the bud.
For now, while these diplomatic tributaries still bubble away, international diplomacy is being conducted via megaphone. Trump is still imposing pressure on Zelensky to agree a surrender ceasefire on the administration’s terms. It’s one that cedes territory to Russia and mineral resources to the US, without guarantees to ensure Ukraine’s future security.
No wonder Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that, “on the whole, this approach is positive” after Trump’s report of Zelensky’s letter.
Meantime, European diplomacy keeps going. Defence Secretary John Healey is due to land in Washington for discussions with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth on Thursday, while the French have floated the idea of Starmer, Macron and Zelensky visiting Trump together soon to present their plan for peace.
So far it appears the Europeans are happy to leave dealing with Moscow purely to the Americans. “The Russians want a deal as much as anyone else does,” a UK Government source said, “but they need to be able to frame it as a win, they need to say: ‘Ukraine must come to us.’”