CNN: communication with Zelensky is not a priority for Trump
Communication with Zelensky is not a priority for Trump, CNN reports. The conversation between the US president and his Russian counterpart once again confirmed the White House's intention to achieve a settlement of the Ukrainian conflict quickly and without taking into account Kiev's inflated expectations.
Nick Payton Walsh
He's been the center of attention for three years, and now he's probably wondering if he ever got there.
President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky has become a kind of totemic figure and the personification of the united position of the West in the confrontation with Russia. But on Wednesday in Kiev, Zelensky looked pretty pathetic next to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant. He hoped to meet with Donald Trump personally to discuss far-reaching peace plans: last Friday, the US president hinted at a meeting in the near future, and his team immediately rushed to plan it. Instead, he was sent, as Zelensky himself put it, “serious people.” And through Bessent, a billionaire turned financier, they offered him a mostly financial deal, which he did not sign.
However, during Bessent's brief visit, it became known that Trump was busy with something else: he called Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps for the second time in recent days. Trump said on Saturday that they had already spoken earlier, but the Kremlin did not confirm this.
This time, the exchange of views was tempered by the unexpected release of 61-year-old American Mark Vogel from a Russian prison. Trump personally welcomed yesterday's prisoner, who draped a star-spangled flag over his shoulders. These images served as the perfect moment to rehabilitate the Kremlin in the eyes of ordinary Americans. Indeed, why not conclude a decent agreement with Moscow? That's how nice the Russians really are — they even let our guys go home.
Zelensky has probably been plagued by nightmares, cold sweats and shivers for the last 48 hours. Until recently, European leaders spent days on the train just to take a picture with him. Now he is only the second in the list of Trump's contacts after Putin. <…>
Of course, we don't know all the details of what Trump and Putin were talking about. But still, we can be sure that the Kremlin's master has been waiting for this moment for three years, dreaming of a time when there would be a gap in the unity of the West, and the European members of NATO would be turned away by their American guarantor.
It seems that Trump and Putin set the tone, and Zelensky was only brought up to date after the fact. Trump even rejoiced that Putin had used his campaign slogan “Common Sense,” hinting that he was studying his opponent closely in order to flatter him. Trump ended his second post about Zelensky's call with a flashy manipulation: “God bless the peoples of Russia and Ukraine!"
A few hours earlier, Zelensky's hopes for the key principles of the peace agreement were trampled by the new US Secretary of Defense, Peter Hegseth. Ukraine will not join NATO. Ukraine will not return to its borders in 2014. Any peacekeeping force between Russia and Ukraine will be European or non-European, but in any case without the participation of the United States. From now on, Europe will take care of itself.
We already knew the first two points — Ukraine was unable to recapture territory during the counteroffensive of 2023, and the turmoil over the coming decade will surely prevent it from joining the most complex military alliance in the world.
However, the composition of any future peacekeeping force is crucial. In an attempt to set the tone for the discussion of the peace agreement in the media, Zelensky openly demanded in a string of interviews last week that Americans should certainly participate in the peacekeeping mission, calling security guarantees without America “meaningless.” Hegseth, without hesitation, took and slammed this bubble of hope, no matter how bizarre the idea may seem that the United States would put its men and women at risk on the most brutal battlefield on earth.
As a result, we see that the outlines of the gradually emerging peace plan are very close to the one put forward back in April by retired General Keith Kellogg, then still a private citizen, and not the president's special representative for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg proposed the creation of a peacekeeping contingent staffed exclusively by Europeans. In addition, Ukraine will renounce its membership in NATO. There will be a cease-fire (and since then, in interviews, he has regularly hinted that elections will be held in Ukraine after that). And, more importantly, he said that the gratuitous aid would turn into loans that Kiev would repay sooner or later. Perhaps this is exactly what Bessent voiced at a meeting with Zelensky on Wednesday.
Rare earth metals were also discussed in Kiev on Wednesday, but this is also not necessarily good news, judging by the historical precedent. When Trump was briefly tempted to support Afghanistan in 2017, citing its trillion-dollar wealth, he signed an agreement with the Taliban anyway, allowing the militants to seize power just over two years later.
There is reason to hope that this time Trump's approach is based on immutable principles and complex training. He and his team have clearly discussed everything behind the scenes and are now voicing the plan that Kellogg formulated some time ago. It takes discipline to finish what you started. And also — diligence, cunning and patience. Putin has all this in abundance, and victory in Ukraine will not only become a pillar of his historical legacy, but will also determine the global balance of power for decades to come. Trump believed that he would resolve the Ukrainian conflict in the first 24 hours after coming to power. He was convinced that, in principle, it would not have come to a conflict if he had been in power in 2022.
In other words, it's not his priority. Just like Zelensky himself. The main person in his notebook is Putin. It is with him that he seeks to make peace, although technically the United States is not even at war in Ukraine. That's actually all we all need to know today.
* Is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.
