Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been quite clear on one predicate for peace. He wants substantive security guarantees for Ukraine.
Ukraine has been wary of exactly what security guarantees will look like. Just before Monday's meetings, Zelensky said peace must be "lasting" and not echo the "so called 'security guarantees' in 1994."
"They didn't work," Zelensky continued.
In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons in the country in exchange for security "assurances" from the U.S, U.K. and from Russia. The agreement—a political pledge worded to safeguard the "independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine"—became known as the Budapest Memorandum. Russia violated the memorandum in 2014 and 2022.
One would be hard pressed to consider it an unreasonable condition. No matter how one views NATO or Russia, one fact is absolutely indisputable: Russia invaded Ukraine. If there is to be peace, Zelenskyy quite naturally wants to feel confident that Russia will not invade Ukraine a second time.
In what has become a pattern for Russia, Putin has helped punctuate Zelenskyy’s arguments. While Zelenskyy and several European leaders were meeting with President Trump yesterday, Russia was launching the largest drone and missile attack on Ukraine in weeks.
The air force said Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles into Ukraine, of which 30 drones and six missiles were intercepted or suppressed. The air force reported the impacts of 40 drones and four missiles across 16 locations, with debris reportedly falling in three locations.
Exactly what strategic imperative motivated Putin to launch this attack at this time is an unknown. What is not unknown is that such an attack is an ironic counterpoint to Trump’s pre-meeting assessment of Zelenskyy’s position:
Ahead of Monday's meetings, Trump appeared to be pressuring Zelenskyy into making a deal. "President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight," Trump wrote on social media on Sunday.
With Russia continuing missile and drone attacks, however, how many options does Ukraine have besides fighting? If Russia refuses to stop attacking, how does Ukraine have the power to end the war?
While launching this attack, Putin also created a complication in the peace process: he is adamantly opposed to NATO forces being stationed in Ukraine.
The president later confirmed that Putin would accept security guarantees for Ukraine, though Russian officials on Monday said that the presence of NATO troops in the country would be unacceptable.
Yet how else can Ukraine have a meaningful security guarantee that will work to keep Russia from launching a fresh invasion later? As I wrote yesterday, no matter how the war in Ukraine ends, Putin will have NATO forces directly on Russia’s borders.
Moreover, a simple glance at a map of Europe confirms one thing: any peacekeeping force of any size is going to involve troops from NATO countries.
As Russia is the aggressor against Ukraine, there is only one entity in a position to even make a credible security guarantee for Ukraine, and that is NATO. A quick glance at a map of NATO countries shows that to have always been the case.
If NATO does not provide Ukraine with a security guarantee, who else is left? Besides no one, that is.
Even Donald Trump has conceded that Putin is not exactly making the path to peace an easy one.
Trump admitted the conflict was "a tough one" to solve and conceded it was possible the Russian president was not interested in ending hostilities.
"We're going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks," he said on Tuesday. "It's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal."
Putin faced a "rough situation" if that were the case, Trump added, without offering any details.
Putin’s contradictory moves regarding peace with Ukraine are not new, however. From the very beginning of the war there has been a fair bit of policy schizophrenia in the Kremlin over Ukraine.
Even before Putin invaded, it was patently obvious that a war would be costly for Russia and Ukraine as well as Europe overall.
Despite the economic price tag, Putin ordered the invasion anyway.
Now the question is whether Putin can bring himself to order the Russians to stop.
Without the US, NATO is just paper and talk.
The euro-trash are gonna have to cowboy-up, get out their 450million strong 💶 ⚙️🏭 taxbase checkbook, and start arming up because there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON EVER that the blood of even one US serviceman should be spilled over the DonBas or Crimea,🩸 period!
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO DOUBLED in size geographically and cut it's actual defense spending (in Europe) in half!
The EU are progressive collectivist do-gooders and 🎓 🦤 are a failed and morally bankrupt experiment. DJT and Putin are talking reality, even if Putin is an evil despot. 🪖💥🛑🤕🩻🪦
The Budapest Memorandum in 1994 ☢️ will forever be the reason to NEVER give up your nuclear weapons if you have access to them!