Ukraine's adjusting to the idea that it has to cede some territory to Russia,

A top Nato general, now retired, also notes that Moscow and Beijing have become closer since the Ukraine conflict began.

- Ravi Velloor

With US President-elect Donald Trump having usurped the foreign policy initiative from incumbent Joe Biden and privileging French President Emmanuel Macron with the diplomatic coup of arranging a meeting between himself and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the pieces on the European chessboard are set to move swiftly.

It is interesting, under these circumstances, to hear the Nato and European perspective on the Ukraine peace deal that Trump has promised within a day of taking office, and what more is likely to come thereafter.

No better person to offer these insights than Lieutenant-General Hans Werner Wiermann, who was Nato's head of International Military Staff when President Vladimir Putin's army waded into Ukraine in 2022.

After a spectacular career with the German army, the engineer-soldier is credited with midwifing Nato's 2030 strategy, placing a new emphasis on space as an operational domain, and the alliance's deter-and-defend strategy.

Nearing the third anniversary of the conflict, the now-retired general says the war is an unwinnable one - for either side.

Neither is a negotiated settlement easy, never mind what Trump might think or say.

But the war has indeed brought China and Russia closer together in unprecedented ways, even if there isn't clinching evidence, as widely reported, that a Chinese cargo vessel deliberately destroyed the undersea submarine cable link in the Baltic Sea a fortnight ago, to help Russia.

And as for American retrenchment from Nato under Trump, the early signs are not too discouraging for Europe.

That, in essence, seems to be the distilled Nato-European view after watching events unfold since the US presidential election delivered a decisive win for Trump.