But it is the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, thousands of miles from Europe, that has nearly broken ​the 76-year-old bloc and threatens to leave it in its weakest state since its creation, say analysts and diplomats.

Trump, enraged that European countries have declined to send their navies to open up the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping ‌following the start of the air war on Feb 28, has declared he is considering withdrawing from the alliance.

“Wouldn’t you if you were me?” Trump asked Reuters in a Wednesday interview.

In a speech on Wednesday night, Trump criticized U.S. allies but stopped short of condemning NATO, as many experts thought he might.

But combined with other barbs aimed at Europeans in recent weeks, Trump’s comments have provoked unprecedented concern that the U.S. will not come to the aid of European allies should they be attacked, whether or not Washington formally walks away.

The result, say analysts and diplomats, is that the alliance created in the Cold War that has long served as the basic fabric of European ​security is fraying and the mutual defense agreement at its core is no longer taken as a given.

“This is the worst place (NATO) has been since it was founded,” said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who now leads the Europe, Russia, and ​Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s really hard to think of anything that even comes close.”

That reality is sinking in for Europeans, who have counted on NATO as a ⁠bulwark against an increasingly assertive Russia.

As recently as February, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte had dismissed the idea of Europe defending itself without the U.S. as a “silly thought.” Now, many officials and diplomats consider it the default expectation.

“NATO remains necessary, but we must be capable of thinking of NATO ​without the Americans,” said General Francois Lecointre, who served as France’s armed forces chief from 2017 to 2021.

“Whether it should even continue to be called NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization – is a valid question.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies ​clear, and as the President emphasized, ‘the United States will remember.’”

A NATO representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

THIS TIME IT’S DIFFERENT

NATO has been challenged before, not least during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, when he also considered withdrawing from the alliance.

But while many European officials until recently believed that Trump could be kept on board with pomp and flattery, fewer now hold that belief, according to conversations with dozens of former and current U.S. and European officials.

Trump and his officials have expressed frustration over what they see as NATO’s unwillingness to help the United States in a time of need, including by not directly assisting with the Strait of Hormuz ​and by restricting U.S. use of some airfields and airspace. U.S. officials have declared NATO cannot be a “one-way street”.

European officials counter that they have not received U.S. requests for specific assets for a mission to open the strait and complain that Washington has been inconsistent about whether such ​a mission would operate during or after the war.

“It’s a terrible situation for NATO to be in,” said Jamie Shea, a former senior NATO official who is now a senior fellow at the Friends of Europe think tank.

“It is a blow to the allies who, since Trump returned to the White House, have ‌worked hard to ⁠show that they are willing and able to take more responsibility (for their own defense).”

Trump’s latest comments follow other signs of an increasingly unsteady alliance.

Those include his stepped-up threats in January to wrest Greenland away from Denmark and recent moves by the U.S. that Europeans see as particularly accommodating toward Russia, which NATO defines as its principal security threat.

The administration has remained essentially mum amid reports that Moscow has provided targeting data for Iran to attack U.S. assets in the Middle East and has lifted sanctions on Russian oil in a bid to ease global energy prices that have spiked during the war.

At a meeting of G7 foreign ministers near Paris last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kaja Kallas, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, had a tense exchange, according to five people familiar with the matter, underlining the increasingly fraught transatlantic relationship.

Kallas asked when U.S. patience ​with Russian President Vladimir Putin would run out over Ukraine peace negotiations, ​prompting Rubio to respond with irritation that the U.S. was ⁠trying to end the war while also providing support to Ukraine, but the EU was welcome to mediate if it wanted to.

NO GOING BACK

Legally, Trump may lack the authority to withdraw from NATO. Under a law passed in 2023, a U.S. president cannot exit the alliance without the consent of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, a nearly impossible threshold.

But analysts say that, as commander-in-chief, Trump can decide whether the U.S. military will defend ​NATO members. Declining to do so could imperil the alliance without a formal withdrawal.

To be sure, not everyone sees the current crisis as existential. One French diplomat described the president’s rhetoric as a passing ​temper tantrum.

Trump has changed his position on ⁠NATO before.

In 2024, he said on the campaign trail that he would encourage Putin to attack NATO members that do not pay their fair share on defense. By the last annual NATO summit, in June 2025, the alliance was in his good graces, with Trump delivering a speech effusively praising European leaders as people who “love their countries.”

Next week, Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, who has a strong relationship with Trump, is set to visit Washington in an effort to change Trump’s view once again.

Analysts say European nations have good reason to keep the U.S. engaged in NATO despite doubts over whether Trump would come to their defense. ⁠Among other reasons, the ​U.S. military provides a range of capabilities NATO can’t easily replace, such as satellite intelligence.

Even if Trump and the Europeans find a way to stay together in NATO, ​diplomats, analysts and officials say, the transatlantic alliance that has been central to the global order since World War Two may never be the same.

“I do think we’re turning the page of 80 years of working together,” said Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO under Democratic President Joe Biden.

“I don’t think it means the end of the transatlantic relationship, but we’re ​on the cusp of something that’s going to have a different look and feel to it.”

Source: Reuters

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When a former governor publicly alleges that he learned of an impending arrest because the National Security Adviser’s phone call was “tapped,” the matter ceases to be personal. It becomes constitutional.

In a televised interview on Arise TV, Nasir El-Rufai suggested that he became aware of official moves against him through intercepted communications allegedly linked to the office of the National Security Adviser. The statement was delivered almost casually, as if surveillance at the highest level of national security were an ordinary feature of political life. It is not.

If taken seriously, the implications cut to the heart of the republic.

Surveillance Is an Exceptional Power – under Nigeria’s constitutional order and relevant telecommunications and cybercrime laws, interception of private communication is not a political instrument. It is an extraordinary power, reserved for narrowly defined circumstances and subject to legal authorization.

Surveillance requires lawful approval. It must be tied to national security threats or serious criminal investigation. Judicial oversight is not decorative; it is foundational.

If the National Security Adviser’s communication was intercepted, immediate questions arise: Was there judicial authorization? On what legal suspicion was the interception predicated?

Which agency executed it? Was the NSA himself under lawful scrutiny?

If lawful, then the public deserves structured clarification about the scope and boundaries of such authority. If unlawful, the breach is grave. Unauthorized interception violates constitutional privacy protections and potentially attracts criminal liability.

Either possibility unsettles institutional confidence.

Access Is Also a Legal Question

The constitutional concern does not end with the interceptor. It extends to the recipient of the intercepted intelligence.

Under established legal principles, unauthorized possession, dissemination, or use of classified or illegally obtained communication may itself constitute an offence. The law scrutinizes not only the act of interception, but the chain of custody and benefit.

When a prominent citizen publicly implies access to tapped communications, it invites inquiry: Who provided the information? Was it classified? Was its acquisition lawful? Was there collusion or breach of protocol?

The audacity is not merely in alleging surveillance; it is in invoking access to its product.

Yet institutional imperfection does not excuse individual responsibility. No citizen, however influential, stands beyond the reach of legal scrutiny.

If the claim is rhetorical flourish, it weakens institutional credibility. If literal, it raises serious legal exposure. In either case, democratic confidence is strained.

Perhaps the most disturbing element is normalization.

When exceptional surveillance powers are referenced casually, their gravity diminishes. Intelligence interception exists to protect national security — not to become currency in elite rivalry.

Nigeria’s security architecture has long contended with overlapping mandates and contested transparency. Oversight mechanisms exist, but public trust in their robustness remains uneven.

Public assertions of intercepted communications deepen that distrust.

Yet institutional imperfection does not excuse individual responsibility. No citizen, however influential, stands beyond the reach of legal scrutiny. If the claim is true, it reveals potential vulnerability within intelligence discipline. If exaggerated, it erodes institutional credibility.

Both outcomes are injurious.

The rule of law is not selective.

If unlawful interception occurred, it must be investigated. If classified intelligence circulated improperly, it must be examined.

If the allegation lacks evidentiary basis, reputational consequences must follow.

Exceptional powers must remain exceptional — constrained by law, supervised by oversight, insulated from factional deployment.

A republic governed by law cannot function through whispered intercepts and informal access to state intelligence.

Boundaries must hold.

Postscript: When the State Falls Silent Abroad

If the surveillance episode raises concerns about the boundaries of state power at home, unfolding events abroad raise equally serious questions about state responsibility.

Nigerian names have appeared in casualty disclosures connected to the Russia–Ukraine war.

Hamzat Kazeen Kolawole.

Mbah Stephen Udoka.

Reportedly killed in November 2025 while attached to a Russian military unit.

Before these confirmations, another Nigerian, widely reported as Abubakar Adamu — surfaced in a distress video, appealing in Hausa for rescue and repatriation after allegedly discovering that his overseas “employment” had led into military entanglement.

This is no longer conjecture. It is loss.

How are Nigerian citizens entering foreign military formations?

Were the contracts fully understood? Were recruitment channels transparent? Were intermediaries operating within Nigeria?

If citizens knowingly enlisted, clarity must be provided. But if recruitment occurred through deception, misrepresentation, or exploitation of economic vulnerability, then the issue transcends migration. It becomes a security concern.

Economic strain at home makes risk seductive. Youth unemployment and inflation sharpen vulnerability. But vulnerability must not become a pipeline to foreign battlefields.

If recruitment networks are operating within Nigeria; formal or informal — they must be investigated. If regulatory loopholes are being exploited, they must be closed. If citizens are being misled, prosecution must follow.

Diplomatic engagement must also be firm. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should seek structured clarification regarding recruitment and deployment of Nigerian nationals.

Reports suggest that other African nationals have also appeared among casualties in the same conflict. If recruitment patterns extend across borders, the African Union must treat this as urgent. Intelligence coordination and preventive advisories are essential.

Africa must not become expendable manpower in external rivalries.

The surveillance controversy and the foreign war casualties appear separate. They are not.

The boundary between intelligence power and political rivalry. The boundary between opportunity and exploitation.

The boundary between rhetoric and criminal implication.

The boundary between sovereignty and vulnerability.

A republic survives when those boundaries are respected. When exceptional powers become normalized, when intelligence becomes theatre, when citizens drift into foreign wars through opaque channels, the state must respond, not selectively, not theatrically, but consistently.

The rule of law at home. Protection of citizens abroad.

That is the standard.

A nation is measured not only by the authority it wields and by the boundaries it enforces.

*Ogundipe, public affairs analyst and former President, Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja.

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The post State power, silent systems and the cost of weak boundaries appeared first on Frontpageng.

The new sanctions were unveiled one day after plans for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin fell apart.

Trump told reporters he cancelled the meeting because “it didn’t feel right to me.”

The U.S. Treasury Department said Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, were targeted in a bid to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.

The move marked a sharp turnaround for the White House, which has veered between pressuring Moscow and taking a more conciliatory approach aimed at securing peace in Ukraine.

Only last week Trump appeared ready to hold off on new actions targeting Moscow.

“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Oil prices extended gains after Bessent’s comments, rising by more than $2 a barrel.

For months, Trump has resisted pressure from U.S. lawmakers to impose energy sanctions, hoping that Putin would agree to end the fighting.

But with no end in sight, he said he felt it was time.

Trump said he was still not ready to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, which Kyiv has requested.

Talking to reporters as he met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump said it would take the Ukrainians at least six months to learn how to use them.

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Ahead of a meeting next week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, Trump said he would like to see Xi use his influence on Putin to halt the fighting.

Xi and Putin have formed a strategic alliance between their countries.

In a fresh show of force, the Kremlin released video showing General Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff, reporting to Putin on the drills.

Russia said it fired missiles from ground launchers, submarines and aircraft, including intercontinental ballistic weapons capable of striking the United States.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its long-range Tu-22M3 strategic bombers flew over the Baltic Sea, escorted at various points by fighter jets from foreign – presumably NATO – states.

At key moments in the war in Ukraine, Putin has issued reminders of Russia’s nuclear might as a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies.

NATO has also been conducting nuclear deterrence exercises this month.

EU countries also approved a 19th package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine, which includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports, the Danish rotating presidency of the EU said on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal said the United States lifted a restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, which would allow Ukraine to increase attacks on targets inside Russia.

In a social media post, Trump denied the report.

On Wednesday, Sweden said it had signed a letter of intent to export Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, as European governments act to boost Kyiv’s defences in a war that has ground on for three years and eight months since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and shows no sign of ending soon.

Ukrainian pilots have been in Sweden to test the Gripen, a rugged and relatively low-cost option compared to aircraft such as the U.S. F-35.

Kyiv aimed to receive and start using Gripens next year and expected to acquire at least 100, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a visit to Swedish defence manufacturer Saab (SAABb.ST)

Source: Reuters

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Trump, who for weeks had been threatening new sanctions against Russia for failing to halt the conflict, announced instead last Friday that he would hold an August 15 summit with Putin in Alaska.

A White House official said on Saturday that Trump was open to Zelenskiy attending, but that preparations currently were for a bilateral meeting with Putin.

The Kremlin leader last week ruled out meeting Zelenskiy, saying the conditions for such an encounter were “unfortunately still far” from being met.

Trump said a potential deal would involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both (sides)”, a statement that compounded Ukrainian alarm that it may face pressure to surrender more land.

Zelenskiy says any decisions taken without Ukraine will be “stillborn” and unworkable.

On Saturday the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and the European Commission said that any diplomatic solution must protect the security interests of Ukraine and Europe.

“The U.S. has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday. “Any deal between the U.S. and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security.”

EU foreign ministers will meet on Monday to discuss next steps, she said.

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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told U.S. network ABC News that Friday’s summit “will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end”.

He added: “It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future.”

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, now holds nearly a fifth of the country.

Rutte said a future peace deal could not include legal recognition of Russian control over Ukrainian land, although it might include de facto recognition.

He compared it to the situation after World War Two when the United States accepted that the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were de facto controlled by the Soviet Union but did not legally recognise their annexation.

Zelenskiy said on Sunday: “The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today.”

A European official said Europe had come up with a counter-proposal to Trump’s, but declined to provide details. Russian officials accused Europe of trying to thwart Trump’s efforts to end the war.

“The Euro-imbeciles are trying to prevent American efforts to help resolve the Ukrainian conflict,” former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted on social media on Sunday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a vituperative statement that the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union resembled “necrophilia”.

Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, said Europe had been reduced to the role of a spectator.

“If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv – even more so,” he said.

CAPTURED TERRITORY

No details of the proposed territorial swap that Trump alluded to have been officially announced.

In addition to Crimea, which it seized in 2014, Russia has formally claimed the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as its own, although it controls only about 70% of the last three.

It holds smaller pieces of territory in three other regions, while Ukraine says it holds a sliver of Russia’s Kursk region.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, said a swap could entail Russia handing over 1,500 sq km to Ukraine and obtaining 7,000 sq km, which he said Russia would capture anyway within about six months.

He provided no evidence to back any of those figures.

Russia took only about 500 sq km of territory in July, according to Western military analysts who say its grinding advances have come at the cost of very high casualties.

Ukraine and its European allies have been haunted for months by the fear that Trump, keen to claim credit for making peace and hoping to seal lucrative joint business deals between the U.S. and Russia, could align with Putin to cut a deal that would be deeply disadvantageous to Kyiv.

They had drawn some encouragement lately as Trump, having piled heavy pressure on Zelenskiy and berated him publicly in the Oval Office in February, began criticising Putin as Russia pounded Kyiv and other cities with its heaviest air attacks of the war.

But the impending Putin-Trump summit, agreed during a trip to Moscow by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff last week, has revived fears that Kyiv and Europe could be sidelined.

“What we will see emerge from Alaska will almost certainly be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe,” wrote Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

“And Ukraine will face the most terrible dilemma. Do they accept this humiliating and destructive deal? Or do they go it alone, unsure of the backing of European states?”

Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said on Sunday that Kyiv’s partnership with its European allies was critical to countering any attempts to keep it away from the table.

“For us right now, a joint position with the Europeans is our main resource,” he said on Ukrainian radio.

Source: Reuters

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The Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The two sides were now in talks over possible successors, who would need approval from both countries, the UK newspaper said, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Markarova, who has served as ambassador in Washington since 2021, has been criticised by some Republicans for being too closely aligned with the Democratic Party.

Her replacement could be an attempt by Zelensky to appease Trump during a sensitive time for Ukraine.

Earlier, Washington withheld previously approved arms deliveries, as Russia continues heavy missile and drone strikes more than three years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelensky reportedly plans to announce Markarova’s replacement next week as part of a broader cabinet reshuffle, according to the newspaper, which cited insider sources.

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The Ukrainian president has reorganised his cabinet several times since the start of the war.

A senior Ukrainian official told the newspaper that Zelensky intends to appoint someone who is a good dealmaker and understandable to the White House and at the same time to the Congress.

The official said candidates for the position include Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, the Financial Times said.

Balázs Jarábik, ex- EU diplomat in Kiev, noted that personnel changes seem aimed at managing growing political, economic and social pressures through renewal and control, rather than signaling shifts, according to newspaper reports.

Source: dpa/NAN

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The handover, the second to take place this week, was brokered by the International Red Cross, the staff responsible for prisoner of war issues in Kiev said.

On Wednesday, Ukraine received the remains of 1,212 soldiers and handed over 27 dead bodies to Moscow in return.

During direct negotiations in Istanbul at the beginning of the month, the warring parties agreed on the return of the remains of more than 6,000 fallen soldiers from Russia to Ukraine.

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The exchange was originally expected last weekend, but stalled due to a lack of coordination between the two countries.

Friday’s handover followed another wave of overnight Russian drone attacks on eastern Ukraine, with combat drones bombing areas around Sumy and Donetsk, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

Air raid alerts sounded in eastern Ukraine, authorities said.

Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for more than three years.

Source: dpa/NAN

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Zelenskyy announced this on Telegram, Turkish news agency, quoting Ukrinform, said on Sunday.

“We await a full and lasting ceasefire, starting from tomorrow, to provide the necessary basis for diplomacy.

“There is no point in prolonging the killings,” the Ukrainian President stated.

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Zelensky added: “I’ll be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally.”

“I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,” he emphasised.

According to the report, on May 10, Ukraine, together with its allies — France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland — proposed a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.

Should Russia reject it, Ukraine’s allies plan to tighten sanctions against Moscow.

Later, Putin proposed holding direct negotiations with Ukraine “where they were interrupted” in 2022

Source: AA/NAN

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“They wanted to provoke us; they wanted to make us make mistakes,” he said in the film “Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 years.”

“However, there was no need to use nuclear weapons,” the Russian leader said.

“And I hope that this will not be necessary in the future either.”

Russia has sufficient forces and means to achieve everything that was necessary for Moscow in the military operation that began in 2022, Putin said, referring to the year the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin and his leadership have repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and its allies in the course of the war.

The U.S. government was under the impression that Moscow could be preparing to drop a nuclear bomb in the autumn of 2022, according to reports.

Washington delivered a stern warning to Russia through diplomatic channels at the time.

The test attack with a new Russian medium-range missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024 is also considered a nuclear threat.

Three people were killed by Ukrainian attacks in the Kursk border region, local governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Monday.

Two women died when a Ukrainian drone hit a car carrying five people, the official wrote on Telegram.

One man and two other women suffered bruises and abrasions.

One man was killed in another attack on a car, according to Khinshtein.

Following the surprise Ukrainian advance into the region last summer, the Russian military claimed at the end of April that Kursk had been “completely liberated.”

However, Kiev rejects this and says it still holds part of the territory.

“The buffer zone that the Ukrainian defense forces have created in the border areas remains relevant now,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, posted on Facebook.

The operation, which has been ongoing for nine months, had achieved most of its objectives, Syrskyi claimed.

On Monday morning, Russian military bloggers reported a new advance by small Ukrainian units into the Kursk region near the village of Tyotkino.

The reports have not yet been officially confirmed in Moscow or Kiev.

Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for more than three years.

As part of its defensive campaign, it has also been attacking targets in Russia, resulting in deaths and injuries.

The casualties and damage are dwarfed by the devastating consequences of Russia’s war on the Ukrainian side.

Early on Monday, Russian authorities reported a drone attack in the Moscow region, with four unmanned aerial vehicles shot down over the city of Podolsk, south of the capital.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that the drones were destroyed by Russian air defences.

There was no damage or injuries at the crash site, he said, citing initial information.

There have been ongoing diplomatic efforts by the United States to broker a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev.

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U.S. President Donald Trump recently proposed an unconditional 30-day truce, a plan Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accepted.

However, Putin has rejected the offer.

Instead, Putin has declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire to coincide with the annual Victory Parade on Moscow’s Red Square – which marks the end of World War II and is celebrated in Russia on May 9.

The ceasefire is scheduled to start at 12 a.m. Thursday (2100 GMT Wednesday) and end at 12 a.m. on Sunday (2100 GMT Saturday).

Kiev has rejected the limited pause and demanded that the ceasefire be extended to 30 days.

“The Russians are asking for a ceasefire on May 9 and are themselves firing at Ukraine every day. This is cynicism of the highest order,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

Source: dpa/NAN

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The talks follow a meeting between the United States and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

Earlier, Trump held phone talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

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According to local media Al Arabiya News, the U.S. delegation is led by Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior official from the State Department.

An adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service said Russia is represented by Grigory Karasin, chair of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee and a former diplomat, along with Sergei Beseda.

Source: Xinhua/NAN

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The First and Second world wars profoundly reshaped and re-ordered the world such that hitherto world powers lost their place and new sheriffs emerged in town. So, when the US president, Donald Trump, accused the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that his belligerence could trigger a Third World War, he was warning that his own focus (as the reigning policeman of the world) is more important to him than the myopic demands of Zelenskyy to continue a war he does not appear ever able to win, even with the support of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).

At the advent of the First World war in 1914, the world powers were the Entente Powers led by France, Russia, the British Empire, Italy (from 1915) and the United States of America (from 1917) in opposition to the Central Powers led by the German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman (Turkey) empires. Russia pulled out of the war after its October 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The Central Powers lost the war and a crippling peace treaty – the Treaty of Versailles – was imposed on Germany. The League of Nations was established and the defeated powers lost their relevance and power in the new international or world order.

What Nigeria would have been without the civil war and or the annulment of June 12 will forever remain in the bowels of conjectures!

In 1939, a resurgent Germany instigated the Second World War; the powers that fought that war were the Axis Powers made up of Germany, Italy and Japan on the one hand, and the Allied Powers made up of France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union (USSR), and, to a lesser extent, China. The war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis Powers and the partition of Germany into east and west, with the east falling to communist USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic). The League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations Organisation (UNO or, better still, UN) and the “big elephants in the room” became the United States, USSR, China, Great Britain, and France – the five permanent members of the UN’s Security Council, its highest decision-making organ with a veto power over every vital decision made.

So, a Third World War cannot but also affect and reshape power configurations on the international scene. A new world order is bound to emerge, depending on the realignment of forces and the outcome of the war. Whatever you may think of him, Trump appears to be a student of history as well as a realist. He knows for sure that the world political order may not remain the same after another global conflagration. A weakened United States may not be in a position to dictate its own “peace” to the world as it did in 1945 when the idea of the UN was that of its president, Franklin D. Roosevelt (at his meeting with the Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, in Teheran, Iran, in November 1943).

Little wonder, then, that the UN was headquartered in New York, USA; same with its economic arms (the IMF and World Bank), both with headquarters in Washington, D. C., USA. A new world order after a Third World War is not likely to leave the present arrangement in place; what with the period of a weakened United States coinciding with the stealthy but vigorous emergence on the world scene of India, China, Russia, the historic understanding between the latter two, and the strident move by a growing number of countries that were hitherto strange bedfellows to divert the world economy away from the dominance of the US dollar.

With a new world order, the pecking order of world powers as we have it today is bound to suffer a re-arrangement. Maybe such a moment is what China is waiting for to announce itself as the new sheriff in town and assert its hegemony!

Trump never stopped saying that Zelenskyy should never have allowed the war with Russia to happen. Whether he was goaded into it or he truly believed he could take on its more powerful neighbour, the Ukrainian leader failed to reckon with the historic mistake his predecessors made in 1994 when Ukraine agreed to give away its nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic compensation (like biblical Esau who gave away his birthright for a mess of pottage!). The Memorandum Of Understanding giving assurances from Russia, the US, and UK to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in its existing borders have been disrespected.

That, perhaps, must partly have informed the frustration of Zelenskyy;  the revisionism of Trump over Russia’s invasion and seizing of 20% of Ukraine’s territory must have been the last straw that broke his camel’s back. Before it was prodded to give it away, Ukraine reportedly had on its soil the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal (created, though, by the collapsed USSR). It is debatable whether Russia would have so whimsically invaded a nuclear-power Ukraine the way it did on 24 February, 2022!

For both Russia and Ukraine, the costs of the war in both human and material terms have been staggering. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been committed to the war efforts on both sides. Hundreds of thousands of lives have also been lost by both combatants. Civilian casualties, including children, women, the aged, and the infirm, are also counted in tens of thousands. Millions have fled their homes while million others have become refugees in their own country, especially in the bombarded regions of Ukraine and Russia. Now, after more than three years of war, neither side is close to the outcome it desired!

NATO that thought goading Ukraine into war would provide it the opportunity of massing its armament at Russia’s doormouth appears to have lost the belly for a fight, having counted the costs; thus leaving Ukraine in a quandary. The Russians themselves, quick to realise that a NATO-backed Ukraine would not be a pushover, have changed tactics, resorting to a scorched-earth policy that leaves the combatants bleeding. Stalemate!

Now is the time to count the costs for all parties. For Russia, the 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory it now occupies may not sufficiently compensate for its war efforts, but that it has stopped NATO from expanding right up to its doorsteps is significant. For Ukraine: The lives lost, the billions committed to the war efforts, the massive destruction of vital infrastructure, and territories lost – all these are to what end and purpose? It has not won the war. Ukraine is unlikely to join NATO anytime soon. Now, in addition to losing territory, it will also lose a chunk of its mineral resources as compensation to the US for supporting the war efforts!

The public spat between Zelenskyy and Trump over how to bring the Russia/Ukraine war to an end is a clear indication that Europe has not taken enough time to study and understand the shift in US policy with Trump in the saddle. While his schoolboy dress to the Oval Office was inappropriate, the accusation that Zelenskyy was setup to be embarrassed begs the issue. Similarly, the show of solidarity with Zelenskyy by a horde of European leaders appears inconsequential. If they mean business, let them quickly fill the void that the US has threatened to create by withholding further aid to the Ukranians!

There is a shift in the US foreign policy under Trump. This American president wants to withdraw resources from abroad and divert same into development at home. In doing this, he wants its allies to carry a chunk of the burden that the US alone has borne for decades. That informs the poignant questions Trump asked Zelenskyy and the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. In response to Zelenskyy’s tantrums, Trump asked him: Without US support, would this war not have ended a long time ago? Of course, Zelenskyy knew the answer!

Sarcastic Trump! After praising the UK for being a wonderful ally with a powerful military, he asked Starmer whether the UK could stand up to Russia alone! Starmer stammered! Of course, everyone knows the answer! Trump’s US is tired of frittering its resources policing the entire world while its legs wobble at home. But whether – or how – this policy will affect its commitments to Israel remains to be seen.

According to Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military strategist and theorist, “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. In order words, when politics or diplomacy fails, war ensues. Ironically, leaders recourse to the same (failed) politics or diplomacy to end wars. The Treaty of Versailles ended the First World War, although Adolf HItler, leader of a resurgent Germany, on 17 May, 1933, in a speech to the German Reichstag or Parliament, denounced the treaty as unjust and humiliating, thus setting the stage for the Second World War. Where war between nations ends without a treaty or agreement (as is the case between North and South Korea), the countries concerned are still regarded to be technically at war.

So, after having lost so much in their three-year-old war, Russia and Ukraine still have to sit together and sign an agreement to end the war. It is cobbling that agreement that caused the altercations between Zelenskyy and Trump. With the benefit of hindsight, would it not have been better if both Russia and Ukraine had sat down together to jaw-jaw, rather than war-war before eventually returning to jaw-jaw? Ukraine has suffered double jeopardy!

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John George Stoessinger in “Why nations go to war”, posits that war is not some faceless entity that merely unfolds in some inexplicable way but that people go to war or precipitate war. In other words, personalities (most of the time leaders) acting on issues, go to war.  The failure of politics or diplomacy since 1948 when the State of Israel was created in portions of land said to belong to the Palestinians has necessitated wars and unending conflicts and conflagrations among Palestinians and Israel.

Hamas invaded parts of Israel on 7 October, 2023; the unresolved, underlying issues remain those emanating from the creation of Israel in 1948. Israel’s ferocious response was the consequence. After wasting billions of dollars, losing thousands of lives, and almost bombing Gaza out of existence, neither Israel nor Hamas achieved its stated objectives. Hamas failed to destroy Israel while Israel failed in its search for the last Hamas. Both, in the end, returned to the negotiation table where former US President Joe Biden managed to cobble a ceasefire agreement in his last days in office.

Leadership failure accounts for the Nigerian civil war of 1967 – 1970. It also accounts for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which is generally-acknowledged as the most credible in the country’s chequered history. At his recent book launch, former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, whose junta annulled the election, said he will act differently if given another opportunity. But there are some opportunities that, once lost, can never be regained; which must have informed the immortal words of Stephen Grellet (1773 – 1855): “I shall pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

What Nigeria would have been without the civil war and or the annulment of June 12 will forever remain in the bowels of conjectures!

*Bolawole (turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533), former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of the Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the “ON THE LORD’S DAY” column in the Sunday Tribune and “TREASURES” column in the New Telegraph newspapers. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

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