Trump’s ceasefire or peace initiative for the war in Ukraine is in tatters after the acting president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenski rejected (archived) one of its core points:
Ukraine will not surrender territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Monday, rejecting a central Russian demand that President Donald Trump had incorporated into his latest proposal to end the Kremlin’s war.
“Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away,” Zelensky said, after meeting with top European leaders to discuss Trump’s plan Monday. “That is what we are fighting for.”
Zelenski would not reject Trump’s plan without the support from European leaders. Indeed, as Blooomberg reported two days ago, Starmer (24% approval rating), Merz (22%) and Macron (10%) had set out to sabotage it:
The continent’s primary objective is to avoid a situation where a battered Zelenskiy is forced by the US to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s Donbas region and agree to a deal without any serious American security guarantees.
We have noted long ago that the only real security guarantee a sovereign Ukraine can get is from Russia:
But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.
That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.
Trump’s recent National Security Strategy set out the end of the conflict in Ukraine as one of its aims. The U.S. is thus likely to press further on Kyiv.
There are several ways to do that. The U.S. could threaten to end all intelligence support for the Ukrainian military. It is still delivering constant detailed analyses from satellite pictures and other sources that only the U.S. can provide. This allows Ukraine to know where Russian forces are moving. Blocking such data would be immediately felt on the battlefield.
Another possibility is for the U.S. to tell the NABU anti-corruption investigators, which it controls, to open a case against Zelenski. After recently removing Zelenski’s advisor Andrei Yermak simply by searching his office NABU has been remarkably silent. Yermak has not even been served with an official suspicion. He might be offered a deal to become a witness against Zelenski.
Another alternative is for Trump to simply walk away from the issue for another six months or so. By then the already catastrophic electricity situation in Ukrainian cities (2×4 hours per day max) as well as on the battlefield will have worsened sufficiently to make a land-for-peace deal even more attractive than it is today.