Ukrainian political power begins to raise your doubts about Donald Trump’s strategy to end the war. So far the position of Volodimir Zelenski and his government has been to avoid responding to the Bravcones of the US president, who since the 2024 electoral campaign has been meaning for his proximity to the Russian autocrat, Vladimir Putin, and for his criticisms of aid From Washington to Ukraine. Zelenski has reiterated that without the support of the United States, Ukraine cannot defend himself against Russia. A wave of critical reactions from kyiv to the possibility that the future of the country decides without the Ukrainian vote.
The concern in the spheres of Ukrainian power was clear in the statement issued on Wednesday by the Ukraine Foreign Ministry with those of Spain, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, the European Commission and the United Kingdom. The document, signed in Paris, aims to warn that: “We share the objective of maintaining support to Ukraine until a fair, complete and lasting peace is reached. A peace that guarantees the interests of Ukraine and ours. We hope to discuss the way to achieve it with our American allies. Our shared objectives must place Ukraine in a position of force. Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiation. ”
The newspaper Pravdathe main newspaper of Ukraine, has published this Thursday an unfortunate editorial analysis about what Trump doctrine is. The conclusion is that the US president has taken a radical turn regarding his predecessor Joe Biden. “The previous US government considered unwavering the principle that nothing will be negotiated on Ukraine without Ukraine,” recalls Pravda, “Trump has introduced a new reality in which Ukraine is quickly losing his voice”: “There has been a change in The order of priorities, Trump spoke first with Putin, and only later did it with Zelenski. And the conversation with the Russian was much longer and Trump’s reaction was extraordinarily positive. ”
This exposure of the facts is what fears more than kyiv. “Nothing about Ukraine can be negotiated without the participation of Ukraine,” said Foreign Minister Ukraine, Andrii Sibiga on Thursday.
“Paint very bad”
“This looks very bad,” Timofei Milovanov, former Minister of Economy and president of the kyiv Economy School has written on his social networks. “What do Ukrainians think? That Trump does not want to respond to Si Ukrania is an actor on equal terms in the peace process, that we have to accept peace just because people are dying, ”Milovanov valued. Asked Wednesday by journalists if he considered Ukraine as an equal part in the peace negotiations, the US president just answered: “interesting question.”
“Zelenski will do what he has to do. His surveys are not very high, so to speak. It has a devastated and attacked country, ”Trump also told the press when he was questioned about whether Ukraine must give up territories to Russia, according to Ostap Yarish’s testimony, correspondent for Voice of America In the White House.
“I think this looks very bad for us, it seems that they are selling us, and free,” Milovanov added. The veteran politician referred to two issues that he considers “terrible” for the interests of the invaded country. On the one hand, Trump’s demand to receive critical minerals from Ukraine and Financial. Zelenski already offered the deposits of these natural resources to the US authorities in 2024, and now received criticism from personalities such as Milovanov. President Ukraine wanted to clarify his offer this week by remembering that the exchange must be for mutual benefit.
The other issue that Milovanov has set as an example of the loss of Ukraine influence is the refusal expressed by Trump and its Secretary of Defense ,. The states of the Atlantic Alliance approved in 2024 a joint statement in which they established that the future adhesion of Ukraine is “irreversible.” “We have to get used to these types of messages,” said Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Uumev, after the Hegseth conference, “we want to be in NATO, and we will be an NATO country.”
Zelenski expressed himself in similar terms in a Wednesday interview in The Economist. The Ukrainian president justified that the proruse statements in the last months and weeks of Trump and others in his government such as the vice president, JD Vance, respond to his team “is focused on the national policy of America.” Zelenski admitted that there is a risk that Washington does not have as a priority the Ukrainian position and stressed that without strong security guarantees for his country, Russia will not stop war. The interview occurred hours before dialogue between Trump and Putin.
“What Trump has done is to legitimize an international criminal, a terrorist, a murderer, Putin. He has returned it to the international scene, ”said Andrii Smolii Politologist at the Koretski Institute for the State and Law. The Ukrainian media have also echoed the statements of John Bolton, Trump’s Security Exaser Russia assault the sovereignty of Ukraine, and sell to the Ukrainians granting that they will lose territory and that they will not be insured by NATO. They are concessions even before negotiating. ”
From the Zelenski team, you also try to contain the discomfort. Andrii Kovalenko, a member of the National Security Council, has published a statement in which American policy defends: “What the US is doing is a diplomacy of strategic uncertainty. Avoid clearly defined positions on certain issues to maintain flexibility, have the initiative and influence other actors. ” His words contrast with the always hard, direct and little ambiguous valuations of Trump. Kovalenko has affirmed that the US and Ukraine share the same opponents, Russia and China, but has admitted that the EU should have long had a common army to avoid depending on Trump.
