U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be going to Saudi Arabia sometime later this week to meet with Rusian negotiators to try and find a way to end the Ukraine War.
Sources told Politico that Ukraine had been invited to the meeting but Kiev denies any invitation was extended. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also says that Kyiv had not been invited to the talks.
No major European power received an invitation to the talks, setting off a wave of fear and anxiety in European capitals. This led French President Emmanuel Macron to call for an "emergency meeting" with “the heads of government of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the President of the European Council, the President of the European Commission and the Secretary General of NATO," as Politico reported.
The hysteria was palpable.
Europe’s leaders “cannot accept the fact that what was the U.S. is not the U.S. anymore” and that Europeans can no longer call America an ally, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said during a briefing.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a “once in a generation” moment for national security.
“The UK will work to ensure we keep the US and Europe together,” Starmer was quoted as saying Saturday. “We cannot allow any divisions in the alliance to distract from the external enemies we face.”
There's an old Cheech and Chong joke about the pope and sex: "You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules." Europe has been on the sidelines kibitzing about U.S. strategy for Ukraine aid, while America has contributed four or five times the amount of weapons and financial support to Ukraine compared to Europe.
Someone, please tell me how that rates an equal seat at the negotiating table?
In addition to Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will be in Saudi Arabia. Russia has not announced any negotiators, although if Rubio is going to be there, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will probably be in attendance.
After Defense Secretary Peter Hesgeth's dose of reality in Brussles earlier last week, where he said that Ukraine would not be joining NATO and that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to demand a return to its 2014 borders, Europeans and Ukraine backers in the U.S. almost had a collective heart attack.
That's what reality usually does to the delusional.
The Trump administration’s plan to handle Ukraine affairs with Russia, apparently without European involvement, has caused concern in Europe. On Saturday, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, declined to grant Europeans a seat at the table.
“They failed miserably. So we’re not going to go down that path,” Kellogg said Saturday, referring to a previous effort to achieve peace in Ukraine led by France and Germany during the Obama administration.
McCaul told Reuters at the Munich conference that the goal of the talks is to facilitate a meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky to “finally bring peace and end this conflict.”
Zelenskyy is no dummy. He sees the writing on the wall.
“Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Zelenskyy told the conference in Munich. “From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that.”
“Europe urgently needs its own plan of action concerning Ukraine," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Saturday. “Or else other global players will decide about our future. Not necessarily in line with our own interests.”
As China grows in strength and influence, Russia needs donkeys to carry ammunition to the front line. Moscow has nukes, but the war has hollowed out the Russian military. Putin needs peace. It remains to be seen what he'll give up to get it.
