Zelensky says he is ready to negotiate peace
cnn.comI believe that the mineral deal had a security guarantee from the U.S. "at some future date" like the "infrastructure plan" still on hold for 8 years, meaning empty. Look at all the "cancellations" of Biden programs in one month. One side should not pay in advance while the other is free to renege.
Perhaps European leaders filled that vacuum.
Or perhaps it's a recalibration given a two-front war.
>Perhaps European leaders filled that vacuum.
Sure thing, US gets Ukraine's valuable minerals and Europe foots the bill for Ukraine's defense.
You should go read Zelensky's response on X.
It feels very professional, something that's missing from the other party.
Everyone is 'for peace' but none of them will say what they will give up for peace. Trump and the peace crowd need to be honest.
On Ukraine's terms, Russia just has to give up its dreams of conquering Ukraine.
On Russia's terms, Ukraine has to give up its existence as an independent country, half its people and most things of value within the country.
Either way, Russia won't get its non-US overseas frozen assets back.
I've heard that Russia is demanding NATO withdraw to 1990 borders.
Which is obviously nonsense, because no NATO country has expanded since 1990.
I don’t think anyone can be honest about a live negotiation in public. It’s all going to happen behind closed doors. But realistically, what will happen is that Russia will just formally gain the territories it took over in 2014 after the coup in Ukraine that overthrew Yanukovych. This is not a bad outcome for stability in the region, to be honest - those areas have historically been more Russia-aligned and voted for Yanukovych. It’s not clear why they should be in Ukraine if the coup can just erase their democratic selection.
Yanukovych won by promising to sign the EU accession treaty. It wasn't until Putin blackmailed him and the Europeans wouldn't backfill that he was forced to go back on it leading to the maidan protests.
That may be true but the democratic process was not followed in the end. If you look at the previous election, regions from Luhansk to Crimea were strong supporters of Yanukovych. Those people basically lost their vote as a result of the Maidan revolution / protest / coup / whatever. Should they be required to remain in Ukraine, assuming they don’t want to?
I’m interested in learning more about what you know regarding the Putin blackbail and Europe backfill though - got any sources?
They "lost their vote"? Yanukovych fled, that was his choice. It also ignores the donbas voters who voted for him because of the EU treaty. And they held elections after in which donbas votes counted the same as everyone else. Donbas also voted for Ukraine independence from the Soviet union in the 90s.
Putin demanded yanukovych cancel the EU treaty and instead sign a treaty with Russia. He threatened to stop selling Ukraine gas below market rate. This is the same way he controls lukashenko. Yanukovych went to the Europeans and begged them to make up what Ukraine would lose paying market rate but they refused. So he was forced to cancel the EU treaty which he didn't want to do because he knew what would happen. Rock and a hard place. He was corrupt but not stupid.
>Yanukovych stood for economic modernisation, greater economic ties with the EU, and military non-alignment.
>In November 2013, Yanukovych suddenly withdrew from signing an association agreement with the EU, amidst economic pressure from Russia.
From the Wikipedia.
Didn’t he flee because he was at risk of harm? That still doesn’t remove him from the presidency. There’s a process for that which wasn’t followed - the vote isn’t a substitute.
He fled because literally half of kyiv was protesting. He was going to get impeached because he spent 15 years being pro EU and then reneged.
He ordered the berkut to shoot protesters so he might have been charged with crimes for that.
Why wasn’t he impeached? Isn’t that the right way to handle it?
His security forces started shooting protesters? You can just look this stuff up.
He got in a helicopter and fled to Moscow before that could happen.
Yanukovych fled because even his own party turned on him after police snipers killed over a hundred people. Instead of securing a political deal with other parties to safeguard his future (as he had hoped), he faced the possibility of arrest and criminal prosecution. So he just ran away before it could happen, left Ukraine for Russia and never returned.
Ukraine's parliament assembled and unanimously scheduled a snap presidential election, which was held a few months later. The Ukrainian people subsequently elected a new president.
This comes on the heels of meetings with European leaders, which poses two possibilities:
1 - European leaders are talking the talk but afraid of actually walking the walk with respect to Russia, even despite Putin being drastically weakened over the last two years, which does not bode well at all.
We have been hearing much in recent years about the (dismal) state of readiness within the US military. Given reliance on the US for defense, it is entirely plausible the state of European militaries is even worse. Russia and Iran are not going to stop their push; we need a strong Europe to prevent a nightmare scenario.
2 - It is also possible that Zelensky actually was being overly pushy, asking for too much, reneging on deals, exploiting media, etc. and European countries chose to curb discussions as well, forcing him to come back to the table with the US. This tracks with past difficulties the Biden administration faced in talks with Zelensky[A] and aligns with the narrative that Trump has been pushing in recent days.
This, honestly, would be an even worse scenario. That would somehow place Zelensky _below_ Trump in reasonable-ness and diplomatic maturity, which is an already impossibly low bar. This of course does not bode well for peace talks. Regardless of political stance I think we can all agree the current West is not ready for WW3 to start right away.
I feel this is slightly less likely as it seems Zelensky is coming back to the table on his own imperative.
[A] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-los...
1 Is definitely a factor, after all these are the same people who've been crowing about their sacrifice and bravery in cutting off Russian oil and gas, despite not actually doing any such thing. https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/eu-imports-of-russ...
Unless you really believe that one month of Trump is all it takes for the EU to suddenly take their own defense seriously, and damn the political consequences when the costs hit.
2 I don't think so, I believe he's understandably desperate for security guarantees that go further than the paper ones Russia blew past in 2014 and 2022. Sadly I think he isn't getting them, and between the fiction of European unity and the reality of economic partnership with the US, the latter is more likely to lead to meaningful security.