The reactions of surprise, indignation and panic that followed the revelation of Trump's "secret plan" to personally negotiate with Putin for a ceasefire in Ukraine without Ukraine itself and without Europe, which Washington considers responsible for protecting and rebuilding Ukraine after the war, are strange.
Political scientist Ognyan Minchev warned about this on "Facebook".
For months, public comments on the topic of Ukraine were dominated by a kind of conspiracy theories about how Trump would "push the Kremlin - and, of course, Kiev - to the wall and achieve a cessation of hostilities in a fair way.
The search for a "second bottom" in the suitcase with Trump's "peace plan" practically shifted the focus of the debates from the obvious facts,
characterizing the positions of the new administration in Washington. The eloquent statements - some shared for years - of key figures in and around the administration on the subject of Ukraine were ignored - Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, Vice President Vance, the new Pentagon chief Peter Hegseth, as well as Donald Trump himself, of course. What is obvious today has actually been known for years. Donald Trump's political project and political team have neither interest nor particular emotion for cooperation and partnership with Europe. Why did we not believe this publicly shared truth, but persistently searched for details and hints in the context to extract arguments to the contrary?
Today we are forced to accept the truth at face value - one to one. We live in a world of arrogant realpolitik and we have no time
neither for indignation nor for panic about what is happening. We need even less sterile bureaucratic assessments marking the events. Europe has literally three days - February 13, 14 and 15 - in which to decide and clearly state its decision - whether it will be a subject of geopolitical rivalry in today's and tomorrow's world or will find itself a victim of the agreement between the "big three" in the division of the world.
Europe - through the EU, NATO and the national capitals - must declare that it will categorically and by all means oppose attempts to be bypassed in resolving the key issues of its future - and above all the issue of war and peace in Ukraine. We all know that Europe is a network of interests, not a centralized subject of power. Today and tomorrow it will become clear whether the network can survive and transform into a major geopolitical factor. If it cannot, we are waiting for the collapse of integration, the predominance of national populist forces, who have a project to destroy today's Europe, but do not have a project for the future of Europe. Their project for a "Europe of nations" is a project for Europe from the first half of the 20th century.
No one can transform a power institutional structure in a miraculous way in three days.
What is possible for these days is the declaration of a clear, uncompromising and firm position of European leaders, which will put a categorical psychological barrier to anyone's attempts to dispose of Ukraine and Europe without Ukraine and Europe. On February 13, 14 and 15, the annual conference on international security is being held in Munich, where the leading political leaders of Europe, the West and the world participate. Yes, it turns out - in Munich again...