Ukraine’s diplomatic scenario was upended through the previous week, as its predominant ally, the US, reversed a number of positions.
US President Donald Trump introduced on February 12 that he was starting direct talks with Russia to finish the struggle, overturning his predecessor’s promise that there can be “nothing about Ukraine with out Ukraine”.
On the identical day, US Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Russian diplomatic language invoking “realism”, when he informed Ukraine Defence Contact Group companions in Brussels that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic goal,” and that “the US doesn’t imagine that NATO membership for Ukraine is a sensible end result of a negotiated settlement.”
Eventual NATO membership has been a US promise to Ukraine since 2008, and the US has, all through the struggle, supported a restoration of the border Russia recognised with Ukraine in 1991.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius known as the one-sided concessions “clumsy” and “a mistake”.
Worse was to return
On Tuesday, as Trump’s negotiating staff arrived in Riyadh to start talks, Trump blamed Ukraine for beginning the struggle and implied it had stolen support, frightening an offended response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“As we speak, I heard, ‘Oh, we weren’t invited’ [to talks in Riyadh]. Effectively, you’ve been there for 3 years. It’s best to have ended it three years in the past. It’s best to have by no means began it,” Trump informed reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
The total-scale struggle began in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Trump stated Zelenskyy’s approval ranking was at 4 %, and that he’d “by no means seen an accounting” of what he alleged was $350bn given by the US to Ukraine.
The Kyiv Worldwide Institute of Sociology, which conducts nationwide surveys in Ukraine, polled Zelenskyy’s approval ranking at 57 % this month.
In response to the Kiel Institute for the World Financial system, which tracks army, monetary and humanitarian support to Ukraine, the US has donated $114bn and the European Union $132bn over three years.
Zelenskyy informed reporters in Kyiv the following day that Trump had been caught in “an internet of disinformation”.
Trump responded with extra criticism of Zelenskyy, posting on X {that a} “modestly profitable comic”, had change into “a dictator with out elections” who had “executed a horrible job”.
Europe, too, has been shocked by the US authorities’s stance.
US Vice President JD Vance scolded Europeans for proscribing free speech and curbing democracy in an tackle to the Munich Safety Convention on Friday, suggesting that extreme-right events shunned by mainstream politicians have been the true expression of the folks’s will.
“We see in America a president who admires autocratic methods,” stated Germany’s subsequent chancellor-presumptive, Friedrich Merz, and a “vice chairman who tells us easy methods to run our democracy”.
“We’re now not certain if the People nonetheless stand by our facet as they did after 1945,” he stated.
‘Fast repair is a grimy deal’
Ukrainian politicians have additionally expressed reservations about NATO’s credibility as an alliance.
Different European leaders slammed the Riyadh course of as a sham.
“Any fast repair is a grimy deal … any deal behind our backs gained’t work,” stated European Union international coverage chief Kaja Kallas on X.
“Peace will solely come via power,” stated German Overseas Minister Annalena Baerbock. “This requires robust and long-term safety ensures for Ukraine, a powerful NATO and progress in Ukraine’s accession negotiations with the European Union,” she stated.
Zelenskyy twice up to now week rejected US proposals to formalise US-Ukrainian financial relations as a result of they lacked safety ensures. Hegseth introduced him with a payback plan based mostly on the exploitation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth on February 12, and Vance introduced it again to Munich on Friday.
That plan seemed to be based mostly on what Trump stated in an interview on February 10. “I informed [Ukraine] that I would like the equal of, like, $500bn value of uncommon earth, and so they’ve basically agreed to try this,” Trump informed Fox reporter Bret Baier.
Zelenskyy estimated that Ukraine had acquired $98.5bn in US army and monetary assist.
“However one can not rely as much as $500bn and say, ‘Give us again $500bn in minerals.’ That’s not a severe dialogue,” Zelenskyy stated on Wednesday.
No seat for Ukraine
Moscow has been bullish for the reason that talks in Riyadh have been introduced.
Deputy chairman of Russia’s Nationwide Safety Council Dmitry Medvedev on February 12 upheld Moscow’s defiant stance towards swapping any of the Russian land Ukraine holds in Kursk with any of the Ukrainian land Russia holds.
“The proposals of Ukrainians concerning the ‘change of territories’ are nonsense, the one technique to heal is to ‘really feel like Russians once more’, Dmitry Medvedev wrote in his Telegram channel,” stated Overseas Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov went a step additional on Sunday, denying that Ukraine had any seat on the negotiating desk as a result of it lacked sovereignty.
“That nation can not actually reply for its phrases,” Peskov stated in an interview on Russia As we speak. “Every time it’s essential to make a sure adjustment when negotiating with them, for his or her deficit of sovereignty and the deficit of belief in them. Which won’t go anyplace.”
On Monday, Russia’s everlasting UN consultant, Vasily Nebenzya, insisted on the phrases for peace that Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined final June. Ukraine ought to give up the components of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson that Moscow doesn’t management, he stated, as a result of it had “irrevocably misplaced these areas, abjure NATO membership and stay impartial.
Moscow at the moment controls an estimated two-thirds of Donetsk, three-quarters of Zaporizhia and Kherson, and 99 % of Luhansk.
Denmark’s Defence Intelligence Service declassified a report on February 11 saying Russia was rebuilding its army in preparation for a struggle towards NATO, with the backing of China, Iran and North Korea.
Estonia’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs printed its annual intelligence report the next day, agreeing that Russia was making ready for a struggle with NATO, and saying that the size and end result of the Ukraine struggle can be figuring out components in whether or not that wider struggle was pursued.
The Institute of the Examine of Struggle, a Washington-based suppose tank, printed a report on Russia’s financial, industrial and manpower weaknesses.
“Russia will probably face a lot of materiel, manpower, and financial points in 12 to 18 months if Ukrainian forces proceed to inflict injury on Russian forces on the battlefield on the present fee,” it stated.
Russia’s economy was affected by “elevated and unsustainable struggle spending, rising inflation, vital labor shortages, and reductions in Russia’s sovereign wealth fund,” it discovered, concluding, “The US can use the big challenges Russia will face in 2025 as leverage to safe vital concessions.”
