A long road to nowhere: why is there no peace in Ukraine as advertised by Trump?

The big negotiations of the Ukrainian diplomatic team with their counterparts from the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany, announced for April 23 in London, which were expected to play an almost decisive role in the issue of “achieving peace,” at the last moment shrank to negotiations at the level of foreign ministers only between Ukraine and Great Britain. Our other partners reduced their delegations to lower-level negotiators at the last minute, apparently realizing that the meeting would not bring any significant progress in peacemaking.

The first to set the trend was the White House, which decided the day before to send only Special Representative Keith Kellogg, who is negotiating directly with Ukraine, to the talks. The trip of his colleague Steven Whitkoff, who periodically talks with Putin (and plans to visit him again in the coming days) and State Department head Mark Rubio (who recently met with Lavrov and Ushakov in Saudi Arabia) was canceled most likely because of the realization that they would not hear any news from the Ukrainians that would satisfy the aggressor country.

Thus, Donald Trump's repeated mantra that a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia could be reached “in the coming days” remains only in his fantasy world.

This is how another attempt by the American leader to reach a peace agreement in his first 100 days in office and go down in history as an admirable negotiator came to a bleak end. I point out that this is just another attempt, because it is far from the first, and I bet it will not be the last such initiative from Washington. Of course, now the White House can scare that it will allegedly cast aside its miraculous role of mediator between the Bankova and the Kremlin and withdraw from the negotiations. However, the experience of the resource agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine, which has not yet been concluded, indicates that if Trump really wants something, he will not chop off his shoulder, but will wait for a theatrical pause and will definitely come back. Perhaps without such pathos or pressure, but he will try to push his plan further.

In the current situation, it is gratifying that the Ukrainian leadership has finally learned not to sign the first piece of paper that big and serious partners generously throw at us. And it is ready to discard even the second or third proposal if it contains such blatant clauses as recognizing Crimea as Russian in exchange for some unformalized “security guarantees”. In recent years, Ukrainians have been fond of cursing the previous government for its decision 30 years ago to abandon nuclear weapons. No matter how difficult it is now, are we ready for another such momentous decision, which will return to us a hundredfold in the not too distant future?

Also, let us not discount the fact that our European allies are unanimous with Kiev's position, which for them is conditioned by their own security issues, as well as by the growing trade and political tensions between the New and Old Worlds.

Thus, peace in Ukraine will not come not in the next 48 hours, but most likely in the coming weeks and months.

At the same time, we can cautiously assume that we are a little closer to peace now than we were a few months ago. And Ukraine and Russia are demonstrating this in their own ways. Zelensky has long said that we are ready for a full and comprehensive ceasefire. For a month, a moratorium on strikes on energy facilities was somehow enforced (mostly just on Kremlin statements), and then Putin suddenly gave birth to the Easter ceasefire, which also in reality meant only a slight reduction in the number of enemy strikes. Sort of a moratorium on maritime infrastructure.

This can be perceived as a kind of PR campaign for a peace agreement on the Kremlin's terms. During the Easter truce, drones, missiles and KABs did not fly over Ukrainian cities. This could be interpreted as a kind of suggestion: “If you like not waking up suddenly in the middle of the night from the howling of an air raid, then maybe you can somehow put pressure on the authorities and sign a piece of paper renouncing part of the territories and joining NATO?”.

On the other hand, after refusing to make concessions in London, the enemies can also use the “whip”, for example, to scare us again with “Oreshnik”, to conduct some nuclear exercises or something similar. There is nothing to say about systematic drone and missile strikes on our cities.

However, Ukraine is also responding to the aggressor country with similar actions. Yesterday's explosions at the largest enemy ammunition depot in the Vladimir region and today's drone raid on the geranium production center in Yelabuga are our “cards” on the table of negotiations that have not yet begun.

Ukraine's task now is to stand firm. For a long time now, the war in Ukraine has moved from a sprint to a longer, stayer distance. And the most important thing now is not to break despite promises, intimidation, attempts to placate or vice versa to break the spirit of the country.

Author - Nickolay Yakovenko