Great Powers Summit: In Shenzhen threatens the return of imperial politics

For Volodymyr Zelensky, the Job messages do not stop. After the diesel deal between Washington and Moscow, as a result of which Donald Trump suspended sanctions against Russia, the American president is now talking about a great power summit – to the exclusion of the Ukrainian president. Will the future of Ukraine now be negotiated in the Chinese Shenzhen? Trump has been thinking about a summit with Vladimir Putin for some time. In September, he had invited the Russian ruler to the G-20 meeting in Miami in December. In Europe, many of them were surprised. Zelensky, however, supported the idea. He had long advocated “serious” negotiations. Of course not in Moscow, in the capital of the aggressor, as Putin imagined. But against a summit with Trump, Putin and Zelensky in Miami speak nothing. In Berlin, Kiev’s most important partner in Europe, one remained skeptical: hardly imagined that Putin would appear in Florida. Moscow initially responded in a wait-and-see manner. There were apparently talks in the background. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Putin proposed meeting Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month at the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) summit in Shenzhen to discuss the Ukraine war. “Russia has behaved well in relation to Ukraine” Trump responded shortly afterwards: “I would do it,” he said on Monday in Washington, almost on the way to the next election rally. He wouldn’t do it so much because of Ukraine, “because, frankly, Russia has behaved well in relation to Ukraine.” They have not done much, he says despite the many civilian deaths and the ongoing Russian air strikes on the country. At the tripartite summit, he would mainly talk about nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament. That would be very positive for the world. The meeting has not yet been agreed. Due to the unequal arsenal sizes, Beijing has so far of course blocked itself against trilateral disarmament talks. For Putin, it would not be about disarmament anyway, but the gain of prestige: yesterday the outcast, today the initiator of a great power summit. It is hard to imagine that Ukraine would not be negotiated. Trump also confirmed when asked if he would talk to Putin and Xi about Ukraine: He will do everything he can to end the war. Kiev is not an APEC member – and unlike the G-20 summit, where Zelensky is scheduled to join as a guest, the Ukrainian president is not in Shenzhen in mid-November. The reaction from Kiev came promptly: such a meeting would encourage Putin to continue this war, said Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha. Putin can neither win the war nor end it. Meeting with Witkoff in Oslo Also for the Europeans, a great power summit on the territorial design of an EU accession candidate would be an affront. Their line was always: no negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine. Shenzhen would be a symbol of a return to imperial politics. How could you imagine that? Would Trump, Xi and Putin bow over the map of Europe and redraw borders like the monarchs of Russia, Habsburg and Prussia once did in the Polish divisions? Trump’s U-turn is primarily motivated domestically. In announcing the deal with Putin last week, the president himself made no secret of his primary goal: the reduction of fuel prices shortly before the congressional elections – a goal, of course, that the release of Russian diesel will not achieve. Trump, however, is willing to abandon Zelensky again, after both sides had last pulled together and the opinion prevailed in Washington that Russia would lose the war, not militarily, but economically. Now Trump is again washing money into Putin’s war chest. And falls on Zelensky: This does not want to end the war and probably never wanted it, he wrote on Truth Social. He then demanded the replacement of the president again: It was time for someone else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. Nevertheless, there should be a meeting of his special envoy Steve Witkoff with Zelenskyy in Oslo on Tuesday. Representatives of Europe were also admitted. Meanwhile, on Monday evening, Zelensky complained to senators and congressmen about the lack of military cooperation with the United States. The military communication system Starshield, with which Ukraine controls drones, was throttled further to 160 kilometers per hour, he said in a video conference, without any explanation. In addition, Russia attacked his country in the night on Monday with 16 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles – and again warnings from the United States failed. This has happened for the third time, the President said. He then added a new lawsuit: “The Pentagon is delaying the delivery of the missiles that our partners have already paid for under the PURL program.” Through this program, Ukraine’s NATO partners finance weapons from the United States. By June, they had spent six billion dollars on it. A new package of guided missiles for the Patriot system is waiting for the signature of Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, Zelensky said. European partners waited for the necessary release from Washington before they could hand over their own interceptor missiles to Kiev – in a situation in which Ukraine had “almost no interceptor missiles left”. NATO rejected Zelensky’s account on Tuesday. “Support for Ukraine within the framework of PURL continues to flow,” said a spokesperson for the F.A.Z. We welcome and encourage further contributions..