If Europe and Kiev were smart, they would have rushed to cut a deal with Russia before it was too late, the US political scientist says
Many among Europe’s elites realize Ukraine is “doomed” in the conflict against Russia “despite the delusional comments of their leaders,” American international relations expert and political science professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, believes.
Kiev and its European backers should be rushing to strike a deal with Moscow instead of pushing for the conflict to continue no matter what, Mearsheimer said in an interview with the host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive YouTube channel on Sunday. Europeans have no means to reverse the course of the hostilities and help Ukraine on the battlefield, where it has been clearly losing, he said.
“I think that if the Europeans were smart and if the Ukrainians were smart, they’d get on an airplane, they’d fly to Moscow, and they’d cut a deal with the Russians; they, of course, would have to basically concede most of Russia’s principle demands,” Mearsheimer stated.
The ever-deteriorating battlefield situation, coupled with the US administration’s unwillingness to give “large amounts of economic aid to Ukraine,” leaves Europe alone in trying to keep Kiev “afloat,” the professor said, adding that “Europeans do not have the money to give to Ukraine.”
“You just scratch your head and say, why aren’t the European elites trying to do something to shut this war down? Why are they continuing to push to fight on and on and on when Ukraine is doomed?” he added. “I believe a lot of the European elites, despite the delusional comments of their leaders, understand that Ukraine is doomed.”
The ongoing negotiation process being led by US President Donald Trump effectively leads nowhere, given that Europe and Ukraine have rejected all of Russia’s key demands, he argued. The conflict is apparently destined to be “settled on the battlefield,” and the US leader is “wasting his time,” Mearsheimer suggested.
“There’s no deal to be had here. The Europeans and Ukraine have made it unequivocally clear that they reject out of hand all of the major Russian demands. And from the Russian perspective, those demands are non-negotiable. So, there’s nothing to negotiate here,” he said.
