Trump, Vance and Zelensky: a tense meeting that could define peace in Ukraine
The newly inaugurated president of the United States, referred countless times to the Ukrainian war during his campaign, noting that he would achieve peace in Ukraine within days and that the war should never have started in the first place.
He did not hesitate to recall his good relations with Putin and his criticism of Zelensky of whom he said that every time he visited Washington he took millions of dollars.
In his account, during the campaign, he ignored the fact that during his term he provided Javelin missiles to Ukraine, which were decisive in repelling the Russian attack on Kiev in February 2022, something he threw in Zelensky’s face in his last interview.
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Trump in office and the long-awaited peace in Ukraine
Once in office, he has stepped up his criticism of the Kiev government. The Oval Room episode seemed to be the beginning of the concrete actions he had announced.
At the February 28 meeting, Zelensky was intransigent, saying that he would not accept a cease-fire or the signing of an agreement to hand over mineral resources, starting with rare earths, to the United States unless this country provided security guarantees or became more actively involved in the continuation of the war.
Zelensky’s position was preceded by the visit to Washington of the Prime Ministers of France Emmanuel Macron and Great Britain Keir Starmer and also of Kaja Kallas, High Commissioner of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, who was not received by the new Vice-President J.D. Vance.
Trump, for his part, questioned the “stupid” Biden for having delivered US $350 billion to Ukraine, has questioned the use of those resources and pointed out that Zelensky’s position threatens to unleash the third world war.
He also stressed to him that he was losing the war, that without US aid he would not have been able to keep it going and that he did not have the support of the Ukrainian people. He practically drove him out of the White House.
They all traveled to Washington with the same purpose as Zelensky: to convince Trump to continue support for the Ukrainian government. Trump’s response was the same in every case.
The U.S. vice president the previous days at the Munich Security Conference held in mid-February had noted that, in the pursuit of peace with Russia, Ukraine would not be able to belong to NATO or regain territories lost in the war.
He also noted that the United States would not send troops to Ukraine and questioned the state of democracy in Europe.
These announcements and positions openly clash with the discourse held for three years by most European countries and the Biden administration and have provoked a kind of cataclysm in the foreign policy of the European Union.
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Ambiguous and uncertain prospects
After the meeting Trump froze military aid to Ukraine and 17 of the 27 countries of the European Union and NATO, including Canada and Turkey gathered to support the Ukrainian president and to vow for peace in Ukraine with the defeat of Russia.
In these conditions a deep disagreement is evident in the ranks of NATO and it was left to the European Union to provide economic and military aid to Zelensky for the indefinite continuation of the war and to achieve peace in Ukraine by force.
Despite European discourse, especially from Britain and France, encouraged by the small Baltic States, several countries have been reluctant to send troops, such as Germany, Italy and Poland.
Even all European countries together do not have the economic and military capacity to defeat Russia without U.S. support, and so they are faced with the difficult choice of backing down, giving token and insufficient support, or escalating the conflict to force the U.S. to get involved, which seems unrealistic.
All analysts expected Trump’s State of the Union address on March 4 to include announcements of even more drastic measures by the United States.
However, Trump merely noted that Zelensky had apparently accepted the minerals deal without elaborating on the issue or giving further details in a lengthy speech focused on domestic policy and migration.
As a result, the situation appears frozen for the time being, although secret negotiations will surely take place. Peace in Ukraine may be distant, Zelensky signaled in the course of a few hours, first that peace with Russia was a long way off and subsequently that he was willing to work for peace under Trump’s strong leadership.
The world is expectant about the outcome of a process that will have major repercussions on global geopolitics.
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