There’s a life-and-death blame game going on between Kyiv and Moscow as each side tries to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump that the other is responsible for any failure of his desire to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
They are pointing fingers over violations of the shaky partial ceasefire covering energy infrastructure and the Black Sea in hopes of directing Trump’s resulting wrath at their enemy.
“I clearly showed that we are ready to cease fire. But you will see now that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not ready,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told international journalists in Kyiv this week. “And I would really like that now, when Putin refused to stop the fire, President Trump would put strong pressure on him with sanctions, not remove them.”
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, accused the “neo-Nazi regime” in Kyiv of a “campaign of terror against Russian civilians and energy infrastructure.”
“It is all a spectacle around Donald Trump’s idea of peace process, where Ukraine’s goal is to show we’re not a spoiler of the process,” said Mykola Bielieskov, research fellow at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies.
But there’s a big problem with Kyiv’s strategy: Trump might not actually care.
Trump has not asked Congress for any additional military aid for Ukraine. What’s now arriving was still requested by former President Joe Biden. The most substantial help is U.S. intelligence sharing, which Zelenskyy said is crucial to warn Ukraine of incoming Russian missiles, but which Trump temporarily froze to put pressure on Ukraine.
Rather than support Kyiv, Trump is exploiting Ukraine’s vulnerability. The U.S. has proposed a new minerals deal with Ukraine, reported by the Financial Times. The new deal features no security guarantees and no further financial aid for Ukraine, but would give the U.S. control over all natural resources of Ukraine to extract vast sums from the shattered country.
Ukrainian officials refused to comment on the draft deal, but privately they are calling it extortion and a disaster.
Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak, who saw the new draft, said that he personally “would never vote for it.”
There is also resistance to U.S. pressure.
“Ukraine is not only a territory with valuable and interesting resources for someone, as it was in the First and Second World Wars. Now, on the eve of (and maybe even during) the Third, it is a state with a strong army and society capable of defending its place in the world,” Ukrainian opposition MP Volodymyr Viatrovych said in a statement.
Zelenskyy, who felt the sting of Trump’s rage during a catastrophic White House visit, now prefers to stay cautious and diplomatic.
“Let’s be practical … not nervous. The new draft of the deal needs careful work. We have to act discreetly. So, it is too early to discuss the deal that has already changed so many times and might again change,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference on Thursday. “But I don’t want the Americans to think we’re against something. We don’t want to give any signals that might cause the U.S. to stop aid or intelligence to Ukraine.”
Continue reading
Discussion about this post