Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at a meeting in the Oval Office (Photo: Getty Images) Author: Milan Lelic
Read about the starting positions of the US and Ukraine as they approached today’s fateful negotiations in Jeddah, Arabia, in the column by Milan Lelich, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of RBC-Ukraine.
Since Donald Trump took up the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian war seriously, the density of events, already considerable, has reached completely outrageous levels. That very squabble in the Oval Office happened only a week and a half ago – and so much has happened during this time. Europe is actively thinking about rearmament, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have de facto taken on the role of leaders of the entire Western world, since the US voluntarily refuses this role, even China – it has managed to be outraged by the US attitude towards European countries and has spoken out against a possible behind-the-scenes deal between Washington and Moscow.
Moreover, it initially seemed that Ukraine as a whole was able to fight off the consequences of the scandal in the White House with little bloodshed. On the advice of the British, Volodymyr Zelensky wrote a “repentant” tweet, recognizing Trump's “leadership” and expressing his readiness to work under this leadership to achieve peace. Trump himself commented positively on the “letter” from Zelensky – the fears circulating in the corridors of Kyiv that in his address to Congress he would raze Ukraine and/or Zelensky to the ground did not come true.
However, another fear was justified – the US cut off Ukraine from military aid and intelligence data. Moreover, they explained in plain text why exactly – for blackmail. Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, even compared Ukraine to a donkey that needs to be punched in the face to get its attention – and the cessation of aid served as just such a blow.
However, neither Kyiv nor Washington decided to deepen the conflict and completely sever ties. On the contrary, optimism is heard from both capitals regarding today's negotiations in Saudi Jeddah. However, it is not entirely clear what exactly this is based on.
What the US approached the negotiations with
There are two schools of interpretation of the behavior and statements of Trump and his team. The adherents of the first of them believe that it is possible and necessary to find an approach to the American president. They were especially active in the first days after the Washington scandal, pointing out the numerous mistakes made by Zelensky, from clothing to incorrectly structured conversation or refusal to use translators. They say that if you come in a suit, do not interrupt Trump, show Trump not photos of Ukrainian prisoners, but drafts of some contracts with round sums – then you can get a completely different result, much more satisfactory to Ukraine.
Representatives of the second school of Trump supporters note that perhaps some mistakes in communication with the Americans did indeed take place, and they really should have been avoided. But – they add – this would not have changed anything in principle, since Trump had already decided everything for himself regarding Ukraine and Zelensky personally long ago. And no suits and ties can fix this. For example, the Canadians and their government generally tried to treat Trump with maximum respect – but this did not save them from tariffs and daily territorial harassment.
Analyzing Trump's statements from a logical standpoint is extremely difficult, if not impossible. A striking example is his resonant statements on Friday, according to which: 1) Putin wants peace; 2) that's why he is furiously bombing Ukraine; 3) after all, anyone would do the same in his place; 4) and the problem is not Putin at all, but Zelensky. Or yesterday's reasoning that Russia also “doesn't have any cards in hand” – although just a few days ago Putin had these “cards”. Of course, Trump did not specify how he managed to lose them.
So one conclusion can be drawn from the daily speeches and comments of Trump and his team. They really do want what they say – ending the war in Ukraine as soon as possible, on any terms except one: the US should no longer waste its energy and resources on this overseas war.
In recent days, many American journalists and publicists have been outraged by the fact that the US is being tough only on one side of the war – Ukraine. The “carrot and stick” method works very unevenly. Someone even tried to ask Trump himself about this – only to hear in response that Biden is to blame for everything.
Negotiations in the Oval Office (Photo: Getty Images)
From Trump's own point of view, twisting the arms of Ukrainians has a specific logic. The fastest way to end a duel between two unequal opponents (and Ukraine, no matter how you look at it, is still in the role of the weaker one) is to trip up the weaker and more vulnerable of them.
Trump's entourage has been repeating for several days what exactly it wants to get from today's meeting – signals that “the Ukrainians are really in the mood for peace.” Since it is hardly possible to quantitatively measure the level of the Ukrainians' “mood,” the indicator will be the readiness of our delegation “to make concessions.” In particular, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in any case, we will be talking about some territorial concessions (obviously, today in Jeddah they will expect at least an articulated readiness for this from our team). And here Ukraine can still try to milk the situation for itself.
What Ukraine brought to the negotiations
After the squabble in the White House, the Ukrainian team realized that they would have to make some concessions to the Americans at these stages, and apparently France and Britain were convincing Kyiv of this. The original concept – no ceasefire until firm security guarantees from the US – had no chance of being implemented.
That is why the Franco-British plan with a “partial” or “test” truce in the air and at sea, which Ukraine also agreed to, was put into action. According to an informed source of RBC-Ukraine, the maximum task in today's negotiations is for a potential partial ceasefire to be at least somehow supported, at least by possible American support in the future (in some form) for a European military contingent in Ukraine. So far, Trump and his team have given extremely vague comments on this matter, even by their standards. Although the idea of a limited truce as such was assessed quite normally by Rubio himself.
A deeper idea is to try to finally throw the ball to the Russian half of the field. Here, Ukraine came out with a specific idea – we don't fight at sea, we don't shell the rear, etc. – Russia will have to react to this somehow. And if Trump doesn't like the reaction – then (at least, there are such hopes) he can think about whether “Putin really wants peace”, and the main problem is Ukraine's position, or whether things are completely different.
“We cannot agree to a ceasefire from the position of the losing side, this will come back to haunt us many times in the future. It is important for us to show that Russia did not win. If there is a partial ceasefire, as we propose, it can be presented as parity, look, there is our position, there is the Russian position, everyone had to make some concessions. This is a signal that in the future we will not be saddled with some enslaving agreements,” the interlocutor reasons.
A bad scenario is if they try to impose a purely Russian vision of the process on Ukraine: agreement to a ceasefire based on the Istanbul agreements. In the longer term, this will mean that Ukraine, no matter how you look at it, has lost the war, and will one way or another remain in the “zone of interests” of the aggressor country, and the United States, in principle, agrees with this.
Over the past four months, since Trump's election victory, RBC-Ukraine has often heard from various interlocutors, both Ukrainians and Europeans, that Ukraine's main chance in the medium and long term is to hope for the extreme stupidity and arrogance of the Russians, who may manage to lose the game they have almost won. Today, there will apparently be no Russians in Jeddah – so our task will be to push the aggressors into making a mistake in absentia.