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President Volodymyr Zelensky, from Ukraine, was already facing an intimidating week when foreign officials gathered in Europe to talk about the future of his country.
The Trump administration required $ 500 billion in Ukrainian mineral rights, it canceled Ukraine exemption from American steel prices and a leading American skeptic for military assistance for Kyiv, the vice-president JD Vance, was on the way to Europe for a meeting with the Ukrainian chief.
But on Wednesday, things went from bad to worse. President Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth has carried out a severe assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in his war with Russia. Then, Trump announced that he had spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a call that Mr. Trump described as an opening of talks to put an end to war – without a clear role for Mr. Zelensky.
The telephone call also spent the end of American efforts to isolate Russia diplomatically after its large -scale invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago.
“He is on the heels geopolitically,” said Cliff Kupchan, president of Eurasia Group, a risk analysis company based in Washington, about Mr. Zelensky.
Mr. Trump’s actions in the past two days – who also included an exchange of prisoners with the Kremlin who released an American teacher – reported a thaw relationship between the United States and Russia which could promote Mr. Putin in A peace agreement while leaving Ukraine on the sidelines.
Trump also called the Ukrainian chief on Wednesday, but in an article on social networks, he did not mention how, or if Mr. Zelensky was in peace talks.
Mr. Zelensky will meet Mr. Vance and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, at the annual Munich security conference, which opens on Friday, Trump said.
Negotiations to end the deadliest war in Europe in generations will shape the future of Ukraine, and recent developments mean that some of its territories should remain under Russian occupation.
And they will shape the political future of Mr. Zelensky. He has no other choice but to go hand in with the talks led by the Americans despite his deep skepticism, shared by most Ukrainians, of Mr. Putin’s will to negotiate without imposing expensive conditions or exercise Military and economic pressure to bear.
Thursday morning, it was a largely swirling feeling in kyiv, a city now struck every evening with Russian missiles and exploding drones.
Volodymyr Fseenko, political analyst, wrote on Facebook that Mr. Putin most likely played the Trump administration during the time. “He’s not going to compromise at the end of the war, as the Trump team wants,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump was not the only one to provide news that gives sober to Ukraine. Hegseth told European allies on Wednesday that he was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to return to his borders as before the start of the military invasion of Russia in 2014.
And he added that the United States did not support Ukraine’s objective to join NATO to ensure a peace regulation, the appellant “unrealistic”.
Mr. Zelensky played weak hands before well. In the first days of the invasion of Russia, he came out of a bunker to film selfie videos that joined his country, and a large part of the world, to the cause of Ukraine.
Now, he is again confronted at a pivotal moment for his country in a reduced position, flowing in domestic polls and obtaining a cold shoulder from his most important ally.
Mr. Zelensky said twice in recent days that he has been ready to negotiate with Mr. Putin if the Western allies offered security guarantees in a regulation. In his night speech to the nation on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader was conciliatory, saying that he had a “detailed good discussion” with Mr. Trump.
“We have discussed many aspects – diplomatic, military, economic – and President Trump informed me of what Putin had told him,” he added. “We believe that the strength of America is sufficient to put pressure on Russia and Putin in peace, with us, with all our partners.”
Putin, for his part, said that Mr. Zelensky should face a home election before Russia accepts his signature on a peace agreement.
The request suggests a Russian vision of a potential process in three stages to negotiate a regulation in war, according to a person who had recent conversations on the settlement scenarios with senior Russian officials.
. He envisages an initial truce and a preliminary agreement, followed by elections in Ukraine and only then a binding peace regulation, said that the person, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Ukraine had some light points. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump severely criticized Mr. Putin, saying that he “destroyed” Russia with war.
And although Mr. Trump’s claim on Ukraine minerals has a high cost for kyiv, he was also considered by Ukrainian officials as a sign full of hope.
The talks on mineral rights, which began Wednesday with a visit to kyiv by the American secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, open a way to Mr. Trump to continue military aid while claiming to have obtained an advantage for the states- United.
“They essentially agreed to do so, so at least we do not feel stupid,” Trump said about the will of Ukraine to produce its natural resources, in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Monday. “Otherwise, we are stupid. I said to them, “We have to get something. We cannot continue to pay this money. “”
It was before Russia and the United States showed a new desire to work together. On Tuesday, the friend and sent to Mr. Trump, Steve Witkoff, made a private jet in Moscow to recover a imprisoned American professor, Marc Fogel, a notable gesture of conciliation from Moscow. In return, the Kremlin said, the United States would deliver a Russian cybercrimiral, Alexander VinnikBack to Russia.
Mr. Zelensky rejected the repeated statements of Mr. Putin that he is an illegitimate leader and that Ukraine must hand over martial law and keep elections. (The Ukrainian elections were delayed under martial law after Russia invaded in 2022. The five -year mandate of Mr. Zelensky, who would have expired last May, was extended under the law.)
Ukrainian officials say they see Russian demand for democratic elections as part of a ploy to destabilize the government and force Ukraine to drop its guard for a vote. They urged the Trump administration not to approve the idea.
“It is the Russians who raise the subject of the elections because they need their man in Ukraine,” said Zelensky in an interview with the British broadcaster Itv News which was broadcast last weekend. “If we suspend martial law, we can lose the army. And the Russians will be happy because the qualities of the spirit and the capacity of combat will be lost. »»
In Ukraine, however, his domestic opponents are quietly preparing for a possible campaign.
Despite his decreased status in talks, he is too early to fell for Mr. Zelensky, a former actor and a leader in a crisis, said Kupchan, Eurasia analyst.
“He turned out to be a fairly qualified counterpantor,” he said. “I don’t think we are still in the final act of any game.”
Mr. Zelensky is preparing for talks as a dynamic on the main warfront, in the region of eastern Donbas, has favored Russia for more than a year. It is not known how long Russia can undergo extraordinarily high victims, which have been estimated by military analysts at least in the hundreds per day.
And Ukraine begins talks with a little lever: its control over a few hundred squares of Russian territory in the Kursk region captured last summer, a deeply embarrassing foray into the Kremlin. Mr. Zelensky said he wanted to exchange a territory in Kursk for the Ukrainian lands held by Russia, which Mr. Putin would almost certainly resist.
If the momentum of a few tens or hundreds of meters of progress per day continued thanks to the negotiations, this would give an advantage in Moscow. Then, any delay of Ukraine to accept the conditions of ceasefire would cost the territory of kyiv.
Russia’s progress has slowed down since November in the monthly measures of the captured territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, an analytical group based in the United States.
In January, for example, Russia captured about 40 square miles less than in December, the Institute reported. Military analysts have warned that determining the service of this decline is not possible.
Anton Troanovski Contributed reports.
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