Zelensky works yet again to break Putin’s hold on Trump
WASHINGTON— Standing next to President Trump at his Palm Beach mansion, Volodymyr Zelensky could only grin and grimace without clearly offending his host. “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” Trump told reporters, shocking the Ukrainian president before claiming that Vladimir Putin was sincere in his desire for peace.
This was the latest example of the American president sympathizing with Moscow in its war of conquest in Europe. But Zelensky emerged from Sunday’s meeting once again assuring Ukraine that Ukraine could fight another day, maintaining critical but troubling support from Washington.
The meeting at Mar-a-Lago, where Zelensky traveled with significant concessions, including a plan to make territorial concessions to Russia in front of the Ukrainian public in an attempt to appease the US president, showed little sign of progress towards a peace deal.
But Zelensky also won concessions from Trump, who has been pushing for weeks for a ceasefire by Christmas or threatening to cut Ukraine off from U.S. intelligence, leaving Kiev blind on the battlefield. “I don’t have deadlines,” Trump said Sunday.
Throughout Trump’s first year in office, Zelensky and other European leaders have worked repeatedly to convince Trump that Russian President Putin was in fact an aggressor opposed to peace and responsible for an unprovoked invasion that set off the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Trump showed up each time, even going so far as to question over the summer whether Ukraine could regain territory lost to Russia on the battlefield and promising his North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies “we’re with them all the way.”
But each time, Trump changed course within a few days or weeks, returning to embracing Putin and Russia’s worldview; this includes a proposal for Ukraine to preemptively cede sovereign territory that Russia seeks but cannot occupy by force.
Kyle Balzer, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said Zelensky’s willingness to make concessions in his last call with Trump “succeeded in preventing President Trump from moving further toward Russia’s position,” at least temporarily. “But Trump’s stance – his insistence that a deal is now necessary because time is not on Ukraine’s side – continues to support Putin’s line and negotiating tactics.”
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Putin’s revanchist war aims – to conquer all of Ukraine and, beyond that, to retake parts of Europe that were once part of the Soviet empire – have not changed.
But Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, whose sympathies for Russia have been under scrutiny for years, recently dismissed the assessments as the product of “deep state” “warmongers” within the intelligence community.
On Monday, hours after speaking with Trump, Putin ordered the Russian army to advance towards the city of Zaporozhye, a city of 700,000 people, before the war began. The city lies far outside the Donbas region, which Moscow claims would meet its war aims through a negotiated solution.
“Trump’s instincts favor Putin and Russia,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. “Ukraine and its European partners still hope to convince Trump of the fact that Putin is not interested in a deal that does not mean the surrender of Ukraine.
“If Trump were convinced of Putin’s intransigence, he could further tighten sanctions on Russia and provide more aid to Ukraine to pressure Putin into reaching a deal,” Taylor added. “It’s an uphill battle, we might even call it Sisyphus, but Zelensky and European leaders need to keep trying. So far, almost a year into Trump’s second term, it’s been worth it.”
On Monday, Moscow claimed that Ukraine had carried out a major drone strike targeting Putin’s residence, forcing him to reconsider his stance on negotiations. Kyiv denied the attack took place.
“Given the recent corruption of the murderous Kiev regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating stance will be revised,” Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister since 2004, said in a Telegram post.
Another senior Russian official said the reported attack shocked and infuriated Trump. However, responding on social media, Zelensky said Russia was “at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all the successes of our joint diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team.”
“We continue to work together to bring peace closer,” Zelensky said. “This so-called ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks on Ukraine, including on Kiev, and Russia’s refusal to take the necessary steps to end the war.”
“Ukraine does not take steps to undermine diplomacy. On the contrary, Russia always takes such steps,” he added. “It is critical that the world no longer remains silent. We cannot allow Russia to undermine work towards lasting peace.”
Director: Frederick Kagan Critical Threats ProjectThe meeting did not fundamentally change Trump’s stance on the conflict, a potential win for Kiev in itself, said the Institute for the Study of War, which collaborates with the Institute for the Study of War to conduct daily battlefield assessments of the conflict.
“U.S.-Ukraine negotiations appear to be continuing as they have been, and that’s a positive because they appear to be getting into real detail about what’s needed for meaningful security guarantees and long-term agreements that would make any peace agreement last,” Kagan said.
There are still gaps between Kyiv and the Trump administration in negotiations on security guarantees. Zelensky said on Monday that Trump offered a 15-year deal, while Ukraine wanted a 50-year guarantee.
“As Trump keeps saying, there is no deal until there is a deal,” Kagan added. “We’ll have to see how things go.”
