Are we closer to war with Russia?

The friendly relationship between President Trump and President Putin now seems finally to be over. It has been eight months of drama, disappointment and frustration. Last week, Trump gave his authority for Nato to shoot down Russian drones and fighter jets if they flew into alliance members’ air space which provoked an angry response from Moscow. The Russian ambassador to France, Alexey Meshkov, told a press conference that if a Russian aircraft was shot down it would lead to war.The warning came after Russian drones and fighter jets crossed into Poland, Romania and Estonia. Multiple drones also entered Danish airspace and the government of Copenhagen said it suspected they were Russian. These alarming developments underlined how relations have deteriorated between Washington and Moscow. The second Trump administration had begun with a real sense of optimism that the president would be able to use his influence to persuade Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and to stop violating Nato airspace and launching cyber attacks on the US and Europe. The meeting between Trump and Putin at a military base outside Anchorage in Alaska was supposed to kick-start a new era, with productive relations between Washington and Moscow. The opposite has happened., culminating with the war warning from the Russian ambassador to France. How could it all have gone so wrong? Trump now says that Putin has let him down. But it seems clear that the Russian leader was never going to negotiate peace in Ukraine, unless it was strictly on his own terms, none of which was going to be acceptable to Kyiv. Following Trump’s dramatic change of mind about Ukraine last week, declaring that, given the right support, the Ukrainian military could seize back all the territory occupied by Russian troops, there would seem to be no prospect of a negotiated settlement to end the war. Trump effectively advised Ukraine to fight on and not seek peace. It may, of course, have been a cunning plan by the president to goad Putin into seeking a diplomatic settlement. But the Russian president has shown no sign of considering any sort of compromise. Moreover, after the deliberate incursions by Russian drones and fighter aircraft across Nato borders, Putin seems more determined than ever to provoke the alliance. Can Trump revive his friendship with Putin before the situation becomes even more dangerous, or is it now inevitable, as some military commentators have suggested, that Nato and Russia will become involved in direct conflict? This is such an alarming prospect that Trump is probably the only leader in the world who can contact Putin directly and bring him to his senses. So far, all of the president’s efforts have failed to change Putin’s aggressive tactics. But if something is not done soon to stop the bellicose rhetoric, there could be a serious miscalculation that might lead to a dangerous confrontation between Russia and the West. It is time for another summit between Trump and Putin before it’s all too late.