The anti -aircraft alarms sounded at full power in the streets of kyiv shortly after nine o’clock on Wednesday. Russia had just launched a ballistic missile And the population that sought refuge was asked. The attack coincided over time with Donald Trump’s call to Volodimir Zelenski, in which he informed him of what he had spoken minutes before with Vladimir Putin: that he had agreed with the Russian president to launch peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine . Moscow talked about peace by phone, ordered fire on the ground.
The announcement He has not caught the Ukrainians by surprise, who have been combining their future for some time Always with the same subject: Trump. The good harmony shown by the US president with his Russian counterpart irritates, but is not surprising. They fear that Ukraine is forced to surrender, rather than a fair peace. They reject that they are required to sign a high fire without guarantees that Russia will not invade them again in a few years.
“I feel very disappointed by the vago language that has been used, which for me is a sign that a real agreement has not been reached in the conversation, something that both could boast in public,” he says in conversation with this newspaper Tymofii Brik, rector of the kyiv School of Economics. Trump has talked about millions of dead, inviting Putin to the White House and starting talking about peace, but without concrete dates. “But it also seems that Trump has resisted the first Russian offer, which is promising. Most likely, Ukraine tries to sell to Trump the idea of giving natural resources and exchanging the territories occupied with Russia.” Last summer, Ukraine held part of the Russian province of Kursk, while Russia controls 18% of the Ukrainian territory.
“Negotiate with Hitler”
There was a note of optimism in Zelenski’s statement to its population after the conversation with Trump. “As he says, let’s do it,” ended the message in which there was talk of peace negotiations but also of guarantees.
For some, the time has come. Three years of war are completed next weeksoldiers to send the front scarce and there have been few substantial advances, beyond having resisted the powerful Russian army and maintaining control of the country, which is not little.
“For too long, Ukraine has closed the door to diplomacy, refusing to talk to Putin. It was only a matter of time until someone took the step and did it for us,” says Iuliia Mendel, Ukrainian journalist, former Zelenski press secretary and author of The struggle of our lives. “Now, kyiv is shook in conversations, and no rhetoric can change that. A high fire is inevitable, and most of the Ukrainians support it, according to the last Gallup poll last year. The time has come to pass from the pulse at all costs. If we don’t take the difficult steps, others will give them. ”
Others, however, have many doubts. They assure that It is better to fight now than to allow Russia to recover and attack again. That they must war again in a few years the children of those who are now in the front, and against a stronger army. The Moscow armed forces are suffering casualties at a record rate and their economy feels the sanctions to the oil ghost fleet.
“Putin does not intend to start serious negotiations. He is afraid of Trump but he is not interested in stopping his aggression against Ukraine“, The deputy Oleksandr Merezhko, president of the Outdoor Table (Parliament) of Ukraine, thinks for the newspaper of Spain.” For Putin, stop the war is a risk to his permanence in power. When he says negotiations, Putin really means that Ukraine surrenders, which will never happen. Trump will soon realize who he is negotiating: Putin is a pathological liar. It makes no sense to even try to reach agreements with him. It’s like agreeing with Hitler. ”
Poker game with minerals
In the next few days and weeks an authentic departure of diplomatic poker is coming. A game of deceptions on which the future and life of millions of people will depend. Trump’s zero sum transactional vision has led him to ask Ukraine to return 500,000 million dollarsalthough many estimates estimate the contribution of the United States several orders of magnitude below.
Trump wants to collect rare earths, scarce and necessary raw materials for new technologies. Zelenski is going to play that letter, one of the few left before a new administration against. The Ukrainian president received this Wednesday at kyiv the new United States Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, to talk about the matter.
Trump has continued to send weapons after reaching power on January 20like the powerful patriot missiles. And he has threatened Russia with more sanctions, and harder. At the same time, he is revealing his letters, giving details of what he is not willing to do for peace in Ukraine: no American soldiers on the ground. If necessary, European or South Global countries must be put, said the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
But Trump does not have Europe. Yeah Zelenski has been the second dish for Trump, Europeans have directly ignored them. The Foreign Ministers of Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany and France, gathered in Paris at the time of the announcement, have protested: “There will be no fair or lasting peace without the participation of Europe and without the Ukraine Agreement.”
NO TO PEACE AT ANY PRICE
The Ukrainian population is traditionally distrustful. It has been betrayed by Moscow and Washington. The most serious perhaps was in 1991, when George Bush Father forced Ukraine to sign an agreement for renunciation of his nuclear weapons in exchange for the United States in BudapestRussia and the United Kingdom committed to guarantee the territorial integrity of the country. They recalled the lesson in 2014, when Russia was allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula and the Donbás regions in the East in exchange for stopping the war. Then it was also peace for territories. Zelenski cannot sign anything similar now and live to tell it
“In the United States they believe that Zelenski is his greatest obstacle [para un alto el fuego]but it is not. If he signs a bad agreement, society will not accept it, ”says Yevhen Hlibovytsky, Ukrainian intellectual and director of the Frontier Institute. And his possible substitute, Valeii Zaluzhnyino, a military and now ambassador to the United Kingdom highly valued in the country, “will not be more docile, will be more self -sufficient.” That is, more likely to continue fighting at any price if they are imposed a peace that is a surrender.
