Ukrainians have reacted with caution and deep scepticism to the suggestion that President Donald Trump can deliver an end to Europe’s deadliest war in generations.
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, on Thursday confirmed that a meeting was being planned between Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in “the coming days”.
Trump had on Wednesday told European allies that he would follow such a meeting with a trilateral summit with Putin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Such talks, he said in public comments later, could lead to “the road ending” for the conflict. (Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, declined on Thursday to discuss the idea of a three-way summit with Zelensky.)
Despite the promise of talks, many Ukrainians expressed fear that the White House was again being strung along by the Kremlin.
“Of course, we shouldn’t take all this as a prelude to the end of the war,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, wrote in a social media post, echoing a widely held view. “On Putin’s part, this could be another insidious manoeuvre,” he added.
Fesenko said that Putin’s approach could range from “imitating real negotiations to trying to lure Trump into a negotiating trap in order to sell him a ‘softened’ version of peace on Russian terms, which will then be imposed on President Zelensky and Ukraine”.
The latest developments, Fesenko added, were a “glimmer of a changing (and possibly deceptive) light at the end of a dangerous negotiation tunnel”. Zelensky scheduled calls with leaders across Europe on Thursday as he sought to present a united front with allies before any summit.
“The priorities are absolutely clear,” Zelensky said in a statement, noting that Russia must agree to a ceasefire. He also called for talks to be structured in a way that “can lead to a truly lasting peace”. Long-term security, he added, would be possible only together with the US and Europe.
Ukrainians have been through this before. In April, Trump wrote that a peace deal was “very close” and that “the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’. Most of the major points are agreed to,” he added. “Stop the bloodshed, NOW.”
Instead, the war continued. Russia’s land offensive in eastern Ukraine has pushed slowly forward, while its aerial bombardments have stretched to cities far beyond the front.
While Ukrainians nearly universally want the conflict to end, the government in Kyiv has made it clear that it will not accept peace at any price.
Recent polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians reject any peace plan that calls for the ceding of territory not already captured by Russia — a central Kremlin demand.
While Ukraine’s government long ago accepted White House demands to sign up for a complete and immediate ceasefire, Moscow has repeatedly refused.
Putin has maintained that Russia will continue to wage war until what he calls the “root causes” of the conflict are addressed.
New York Times News Service