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War
One thousand three hundred and sixty-nine day. Trump’s plan is not “directive” for Kyiv - the White House “does not want to see the collapse of Ukraine,” sources say to The Washington Post
Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters in our daily materials because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. What do you think about the peace plan proposed by the US? Is this encouragement of Russian aggression or an opportunity to end the almost four-year war? Should Ukraine agree to these terms before the situation gets worse—or reject and continue the war in the hope of achieving a stronger negotiating position in the future? The feedback form is at the end of this article. You can read the previous day's review here .
World
Trump may lift the requirement to limit the number of Armed Forces of Ukraine, and also considers the supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine as a deterrent after the end of the war.
With the emergence of a new peace plan for Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky is faced with “the most painful choice” of his presidency, writes Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. The journalist spoke with several American officials who explained the White House's position regarding several points of the peace plan. Ignatius tells how they appeared and when the development of this document began.
The process of negotiations on a new peace proposal, as Ignatius writes, began almost a month ago, and accelerated last weekend, when the Secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, expressed his readiness to meet in Florida with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. According to Ignatius’s sources, the reason for starting the discussions was the Trump administration’s feeling that the failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Donetsk region and the corruption scandal in Kyiv have led Ukraine to a turning point, and Russia, feeling growing economic pressure, may prefer to end this war.
At a meeting in Florida, Umerov, according to Ignatius’s sources, said that Zelensky may be ready to compromise on the key issue of Donbass, and also that Ukraine may agree to limit the size of its army to 600 thousand people (Umerov himself said that his task in Florida was technical - he was organizing meetings and preparing dialogue).
As a result, one of the points of the plan (at least in the form in which it was published in the Western press) actually included a limitation on the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The leaders of European countries did not agree with this. However, Ignatius' sources claim that negotiations on the peace plan will be flexible and not "directive for Kyiv."
“Ukraine’s sovereignty should never be compromised. This will open the floodgates of problems across Europe. We don’t want to see Ukraine collapse,” one senior official told a Washington Post columnist.
According to Ignatius’s interlocutors, the Trump administration recognizes that security guarantees for Ukraine are not yet “strong enough,” and the US President may raise the size limit for the Armed Forces of Ukraine or even remove the requirement for a limitation. In addition, the supply of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine is being considered as a deterrent after the war (as an alternative to the European contingent, the presence of which Russia will not agree to). Ignatius’s sources are confident that Ukraine will not use Tomahawks against Russia, as this will deprive it of the support of the United States and Europe.
Additionally, Ignatius writes, the Trump administration is “100%” committed to continuing to share intelligence with Ukraine. Reuters wrote that Ukraine could lose US intelligence if it does not accept the peace proposal, but later US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a conversation with senators, said that he was not aware of such threats.
The Washington Post columnist's sources also explained the point of the peace plan regarding holding elections in Ukraine 100 days after the signing of the agreement. According to them, it was included “taking into account the political instability in Ukraine”: the elections will be “a form of public ratification” of the peace plan. The post-war amnesty clause was added at Ukraine's request to ensure Zelensky and his government would not be held accountable if the corruption scandal escalated.
Ignatius’s interlocutors, as he himself writes, spoke to him because they wanted to convince Europeans, Ukrainians and Americans that Trump’s peace proposal “is not as pro-Russian as it may seem.” The best judge, the journalist notes in his column, will be Zelensky himself: if he supports the deal, further responsibility will fall on Moscow; if he refuses, the war will probably continue next year.
War through the eyes of Meduza readers
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Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.
Sasha (Estonia). The attitude towards the plan is ambivalent. On the one hand, this, of course, encourages the aggressor, and this gives a signal to Russia and other countries that this can be done. And this is scary because it smells of a new war in Europe in the future, an invasion of the Baltic states, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and many other conflicts.
On the other hand, the realities are such that Ukraine’s forces are not unlimited, the United States does not want to fully help on the battlefield, and Europe cannot (and is not particularly willing either). It is very likely that Ukraine's situation will only get worse over time, especially if the US withdraws even its current limited assistance. And from this side, the current peace plan, unfortunately, looks like the best possible option. Yes, by itself it does not solve future problems with Russia, but if you simply do nothing, in six months Ukraine’s situation will only get worse, and all the risks and threats will remain the same (or even increase).
The big problem is that Europe is still living in peacetime for the most part for the fourth year. All the same expressions of concern, all the same fruitless meetings, all the same indecision, all the same completely insufficient strengthening of military assistance and our own military-industrial complex. All the same good-natured talk about “green energy” and other pink peacetime ponies. Neighboring countries have very few resources; Spain and Italy have nothing to do with it: Russia is far from them.
So it turns out that if you sign this peace plan now, then after a while there will be new wars. And if you don’t sign, then in six months there will be a worse peace plan, and after that there will be new wars again...