It’s like two theatrical performances unfolding in parallel in front of one audience.
The peace process over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reached a marked impasse.
At one stage, European allies and Kiev are eager to make U.S. demands and threats resemble a plan that could satisfy President Donald Trump. The Kremlin, on the other hand, has its own highlights. Special envoy Kirill Dmitriev appeals to the commercialistic US president, offering business opportunities that will draw him further into Moscow’s orbit and allow him to advance the advance of Russia’s creeping front. President Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, bounced between the two works. However, the two plots remain separated and despise each other, with no end in sight.
When President Trump talks about the deal with Russia, some facts are more important than others. That is, Russia’s idea of peace is basically a victory. The Kremlin has been forthright about its demands, even in their most extreme form. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to surrender Donbass without further fighting. He has also long accepted the demilitarization of Ukraine, a pledge never to join NATO, and a change in leadership in Kiev, all of which are impractical or impossible in wartime. Therefore, while Russia’s pragmatic chief executive has settled on Donbass as an achievable negotiating target, pressure is mounting for concessions on Kiev.
Why doesn’t Mr. Zelensky simply give in? The reasons for doing so are growing stronger, as the remains of the Donbass are becoming less habitable by the day. Russian drones roam Kramatorsk, the country’s largest population center, hunting civilians around the clock. Sloviansk, Dobropilya, and Kostiantynivka are ruins or targets of Russian glide bombs, and although they are of great military importance, little civilian life remains.
But it was none other than Trump’s national security adviser and potential successor, Marco Rubio, who most clearly demonstrated why Ukraine cannot simply abandon Donbass. In an interview with Breitbart News, he said Russia controls all but 11% of the Donetsk region, while Ukraine describes the rest as “its own embedded defense line.” “They claim it, and military strategists claim it’s true. It’s the last defensible line… from there it’s a straight line to Kiev.” He added that Russia hasn’t really made any progress and has switched to “inflicting extraordinary suffering on the Ukrainian people through drone attacks and ballistic missile attacks and trying to destroy energy infrastructure and power.” Ukraine is now attacking Russian oil refineries.
He acknowledged the efforts of Kushner and Witkoff, but ultimately concluded, “We want to end the war, but ultimately we have other priorities around the world as well.”
Mr. Rubio had a 45-minute phone call with Mr. Zelenskiy on Tuesday, suggesting the president may be more focused on results than his closing remarks suggest. But his lowered expectations reflect the reality of peace performance on these two separate stages. Ukraine wants to survive. Russia wants to win and still believes it can win.
If the sane minds in the White House believe that peace is at best a long-term goal, what have the past 10 days of conflict between the United States and Ukraine resulted in? Does that bring President Trump any closer to the deal he wants?
President Trump has offered surprising pro-Russian incentives to lure Russia towards peace, for which he has not yet set terms. That in itself is pressure, and it appears to be in Putin’s immediate interests.
President Trump’s list of gifts to Moscow is extensive. A surprise diesel deal is likely to inject billions of dollars into Putin’s war chest. The energy ceasefire (unilaterally announced by President Trump but apparently unknown to either side) halted attacks by Ukraine on Russian refineries for several days. Critical Starlink technology also had limitations, which affected Ukraine’s defensive and offensive operations. Restrictions on information sharing left Ukraine without warning of a ballistic missile attack for at least several nights. He repeatedly called on Zelenskiy to step down. On top of that, U.S. financial support for Ukraine has collapsed for months, and Europe is now paying for military aid. If President Putin could write U.S. policy, it might look a lot like this.
Ukraine’s Zelensky: “Information sharing is working now”
Ukraine’s Zelensky: “Information sharing is working now”
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After meeting virtually and in person with Witkov and Kushner, Zelenskiy told a news conference in Oslo that he expected positive words from Rubio about the American-made Patriot air defense system and Starlink soon, but also said his country was grateful that “information sharing” with the United States was “working right now.” Witkov will leave for Russia tomorrow, but it remains unclear what he will offer Putin.
Why now? The political damage Trump is inflicting on himself and his Republican colleagues ahead of the midterm elections is clear. Some are struggling to distance themselves from this barrage of extremely anti-American, pro-Russian policies. Equally surprising is how unsustainable or unrealistic many of these measures are. The diesel deal won’t immediately lower U.S. pump prices, and European regulations will likely limit the cash available to Putin. The energy ceasefire was short-lived and irrational, further damaging President Trump’s credibility. Starlink, StarShield, the military version of Starlink controlled by the U.S. government, and restrictions on information sharing that seem to come and go have put the Ukrainian military in a bind, but Rubio echoes Trump’s denial that such restrictions existed.
This series of mysterious activities only makes sense when viewed through the political prism of the United States. After the midterm elections, this message is being sent out to the world.
President Zelenskiy has gotten rid of the hyperbole that pandering to President Trump will work. Ukraine has become emotionally comfortable with the idea of losing American support and going it alone, knowing that survival is preferable to a volatile friendship with the United States. Europe knows that President Trump’s time for damage is limited and that whatever happens next will be a good thing. Even if the situation were about the same, at least Europe and Ukraine would have had more time to prepare to deal with it alone.
The most problematic issue is President Trump’s timing and thinking. He is only damaging his party and his legacy. But with Republicans still holding majorities in the House and Senate, and the 2028 succession battle not yet begun in earnest, perhaps he sees this as his last unrestrained moment as president of the United States to express in a practical way his sympathies for a man who is clearly strangely important to him: Vladimir Putin.
