Munich Security Conference: will spectre of appeasement haunt old world order?

"America is under new management," said the BBC's Jeremy Bowen. And Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "is joining a growing list of US allies who are finding that the world according to Donald Trump is a colder, more uncertain and potentially more dangerous place for them".

It must have been unsettling for Zelenskyy to learn of Trump's abrupt move to welcome Russia's President Vladimir Putin "back to international diplomacy with a 90-minute phone call", said Bowen. Worse still is the implication that Trump, who rang Zelenskyy after he spoke to Putin, regards him "at best, as a junior adjunct to any peace talks" over ending Russia's war against Ukraine.

As Zelenskyy heads to the Munich Security Conference today, he will push to rally Ukraine's allies. But he faces a tough meeting with US Vice President J.D. Vance. The American message is clear: "Ukraine is losing and must face reality." But Zelenskyy will argue that "victory is still possible – with the right support".

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What did the commentators say?

With Trump appearing now to capitulate to the Kremlin, this year's Munich conference "seems set to mirror the disastrous conference of 1938, where the continent stood blind in the face of Hitler’s duplicity", said former defence secretary Ben Wallace in The Telegraph.

With Ukraine's Nato accession "firmly off the table", at least according to the US, there is "no guarantee that Putin will not return to wrest yet more territory" from Ukraine. Neville Chamberlain famously proclaimed "peace for our time" after appeasing Hitler in 1938. What he got was war. "The same fate awaits the West," said Wallace, "if it fails to stand strong now."

The so-called rules-based international order "is in danger of crumbling" as the security conference begins, said the BBC's Frank Gardner. Initially, "Nato, the EU and the West in general reached an extraordinary level of unity" to back Ukraine and ensure Putin’s invasion failed. "Not any more." Trump has "pulled the rug" from under Ukraine after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is "not realistic".

Yet "many in Ukraine would welcome a ceasefire", said Lawrence Freedman in the Financial Times. Bruised after three years of war, Ukraine "could use a respite to build up its armed forces and revive its economy". A ceasefire "does not require, as the Russians expect, that it abandon hopes of recovering its lost territory forever," nor has the US asked Ukraine to capitulate to the Kremlin's demands to concede more land, disarm or change its regime.

What next?

A "bad peace deal" would "compound the damage that Russia’s invasion has already done to the current international security architecture", said Ihor Smeshko, a former head of Ukraine’s intelligence and security services, on the Atlantic Council. Ukraine must receive "credible long-term security guarantees" that the Russian invasion can never be repeated. "Failure to do so will set the stage for a new era of geopolitical lawlessness that will be felt far beyond the violated borders of Ukraine."

On the sidelines of the Munich conference, Vance acknowledged that European allies should be involved in any peace talks. "Sure they should. Of course," he said.