Presidents Donald Trump’s conversations with Vladimir Putin and then this week’s Volodymyr Zelensky represent the most intense diplomacy to finish.
The first signs are discouraging, as Putin refuses to sign Trump’s proposal. But Trump is framing the opening of any dialogue as a triumph. And each leader is trying to manipulate diplomacy for their own purposes, making a waist game regarding public relations – not least to escape guilt if everything crumbles.
The White House is creating a significant fiction of progress both to maintain the possibility of a peace process and to support the increasingly fragile conception that Trump is a great negotiator, unique in the ability to forge peace. But . Simply put, the Russian President is not yet ready to finish the war, as can be seen from a new set of conditions that Ukraine could never accept if she wants to survive as a sovereign state. And the, offering him a tempting view of a relationship of great power with Putin to attract the president of the United States.
But Zelensky is a quick apprentice. The Ukrainian President cannot allow himself to repeat the disaster of the confrontation in the Oval Room, and now promptly agrees with almost everything Trump asks. Ironically, Zelensky’s argument that caused the collapse – that Putin cannot be reliable to make or maintain ceasefire agreements – has now been proven as true.
Ukraine and Russia are competing for the attention of the president of the United States and trying to blame the other for preventing the achievement of peace. After a violent night, each side accused the other of breaking the partial agreement mediated by Donald Trump to avoid attacks on energy infrastructure. Distancing between the parties, even about this small detail, weakens Trump’s optimistic statements that a peace agreement is close.
USA ignore the initial failure and advance
A, praising the tone of his conversation with Donald Trump on Tuesday and scheduling technical conversations with the Russians in Saudi Arabia, scheduled for the next few days.
Creating an illusion of progress can be an important aspect in these peace negotiations, offering an incentive for the war parts to remain at the conversation table. But in this case, alternative reality also seems to be intended to save the shame of a president who predicted that he would solve the war in 24 hours if voters took him back to the White House. In his Tuesday’s call, Putin clearly had the best part, defeating a US president who is not willing to impose any pressure on the Kremlin strong man.
On the other hand, perhaps due to the most flattering tone of the Ukrainian President. The Ukrainian President agreed, in his one-hour call on Wednesday, to help locate vital air defense equipment to Ukraine in Europe. And White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the US would continue to provide military help and intelligence to Ukraine, which is important because Trump cut this assistance to forcing Kiev to negotiate her 30-day ceasefire plan. And it is a rare rebuke to Putin, who has made US military and intelligence to stop Ukraine a condition to participate in the search for permanent peace.
“I just made a very good telephone call with Ukraine President Zelensky. It lasted about an hour,” Trump wrote on the social network Truth Social. “Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of his requests and needs. We are very right,” continued the US President, in an optimistic assessment that was actually almost absurdly positive. when Trump called Zelensky “dictator.”
After his calls with Putin and Zelensky, Trump’s dream for a peace agreement seems farther than ever. Still, if all this week’s dramatization is somehow the beginning of a real effort to cast a fair and permanent agreement, Trump will prove that his critics were wrong.
Russia has not changed its goals since the invasion
Trump administration is about to receive a demonstration of Kremlin’s root canal diplomacy. By agreeing in principle with the 30-day ceasefire, but rejects him in practice with a number of conditions that require the capitulation of Ukraine and the West, Putin postponed. Long negotiations on technical issues will give their forces time to explore their current advantage on the battlefield and expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region of Russia – one of the few Kiev’s territorial trading letters for future peacekeeping.
Putin’s conditions for a peace agreement – including replacing the current Ukrainian government, a demobilization of the Kiev forces and the desire to see the NATO retreat from east Europe – have not changed.
In the talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the next few days would test Moscow’s seriousness in the negotiations. “It will be up to them [aos russos] say yes or no. I hope you say yes. And if they do, I think we’ll have done great progress. If they say no, then, unfortunately, we will know what the obstacle to peace here is. ”According to Rubio’s own standards, Moscow has now answered negatively, but cannot say that for obvious political and diplomatic reasons and has no choice but to continue to press.
Finland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elina Valtonen, summarized the current state of negotiations in an interview with CNN with Isa Soares on Wednesday. “Trump wants peace. Europe wants peace. Ukraine wants peace. And one thing is missing – and that thing is putin.”
However, Russia is unlikely to be free from its goals. According to the Russian report of his Tuesday call, Putin offered Trump the opportunity to create the type of broad relationship with Russia he wants and seems to make the US leader see the war in Ukraine as a secondary show. Next, the US want to negotiate a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea-and this is also acceptable to Putin, since, like the proposal to stop the attacks on energy infrastructure, this could deprive Kiev from one of its most successful combat areas.
Ukraine has no choice but to play Trump’s game
Rubio and National Security Counselor Mike Waltz described Zelensky’s call with Trump as “fantastic”, representing a diplomatic triumph for the Ukrainian President ,. Zelensky has moderated his approach, apparently reasoning that, to save his country from the worst of the US President’s pro-Putin instincts, it must be the part in the conflict that most clearly works for peace and, by extension, the diplomatic triumph that Trump wants so much to his legacy.
The Ukrainian President filled the report of his call with Trump with gratitude and compliments, something he was accused of not showing during the confrontation in the oval room. He thanked Trump for a “good and productive start of work.”
“We believe that together with America, with President Trump, and under American leadership, lasting peace can be achieved this year,” Zelensky said in a much more effusive statement about US efforts than anything the Russians have said. The Ukrainian President raised the key issue for his country’s citizens in any peace agreement: security guarantees that would be vital to preventing any new outbreak of fighting after an agreement. And judging by the US report of the call, Zelensky seems to have reacted favorably to a Trump suggestion, always transactional, that the future possession of US Ukrainian power plants could improve their safety.
While doing the White House a favor, Ukraine is also working in another front with Europeans, who are building a “coalition of the wills” to help Ukraine if Trump gives up. Zelensky’s main AID, Andriy Yermak, for example, pressed on Wednesday for the acceleration of his country’s adhesion to the European Union, which he said to be vital to strengthen Europe’s security.
