Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden (not pictured) in Paris, France, June 7, 2024.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
Ukraine has put up a staunch fight against the invasion launched by its bigger and more powerful neighbor Russia, but things appear to be going horribly wrong for it as the war’s third anniversary approaches.
Kyiv’s relationship with the United States, its biggest military backer since the start of the war in Feb. 24, 2022, has gone rapidly downhill since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
As things stand, the prospect of more U.S. military aid looks dead in the water and the likelihood is increasing that a “bad” peace deal could be foisted on Ukraine in which it’s forced to concede territory to Russia.
Even the prospect of U.S. support when it comes to a future peacekeeping mission looks unlikely, making Ukraine look isolated and at sea after three long and bloody years of fighting back against Russia.
“The first U.S.-Russia ceasefire talks [this week] on Ukraine offered little cause for optimism for Kyiv,” Andrius Tursa, central and Eastern Europe advisor at risk consultancy Teneo, said in a note Thursday.
“Washington has signaled willingness to consider several Russian demands that undermine Ukraine’s long-term security, while the bilateral format and thawing U.S.-Russia ties raise concerns about a ceasefire deal that may be highly unfavorable for Ukraine. Trump’s criticism towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is driving anti-American sentiment in Ukraine and heating up Transatlantic tensions,” he said in emailed comments.
Relationships fraying
Tensions came to a head this week as U.S. officials re-established relations with their Russian counterparts, excluding Ukraine from preliminary talks laying the groundwork for peace. Then the already tense relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy went from bad to worse on Wednesday as the latter described the U.S. president as “living in a Russian disinformation bubble.”
Trump hit back, describing Ukraine’s wartime leader was a “dictator without elections,” referring to the absence of a democratic vote in Ukraine since 2019. Ukraine says it’s impracticable to hold elections during a time of martial law and war.
U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, continued his visit to Kyiv on Thursday, but there were already doubts over the value the meeting, with Kellogg absent from the high-profile talks held between Russian and U.S. officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier in the week. Ukraine said Kellogg canceled a press conference that was due to take place after the meeting.
Relations between the U.S., Europe and Ukraine took an unexpected turn last week, with Trump leaving allies on the continent dumbfounded when he announced he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that the leaders had agreed to talks. Trump said he had then informed Zelenskyy of the situation.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28, 2019.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth caused more consternation by stating that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to join NATO, and that it could not expect to regain Russian-occupied territory it has lost since 2014, when Russia invaded the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
Hegseth also said there was no way that U.S. troops would be deployed to help keep the peace in Ukraine under any future deal, as he told European leaders that they would need to step up and take responsibility for any peacekeeping. European officials have so far appeared divided over the proposal to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine in any post-war scenario.
Close followers of developments in the war, and geopolitical relations between the U.S. and its erstwhile allies, were critical of Washington’s approach, saying the U.S. had made too many concessions to Russia before talks had even begun by taking the potential leverage of Ukrainian NATO membership off the table.
“Trump has conceded upfront and ahead of any talks with Ukraine what could have been part of a more balanced deal in the end,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said in a note Thursday.
“For all that is publicly known, Russia has not made any concessions in return. This can only embolden Russia to push for more. To add insult to injury, Trump has questioned the legitimacy of democratically elected Zelensky and blamed Ukraine for not giving in to Putin’s maximalist demands years ago,” he said, adding that Trump “seems to have endorsed almost the entire false Russian narrative about the worst war in Europe since 1945.”
Putin rates talks ‘highly’
Russia certainly appears to be loving every minute of the disharmony between the U.S. and Ukraine.
When asked about the growing rift between the former partners Thursday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov commented that the “Kyiv regime loves to live on donations [referring to military aid] and doesn’t like to be held accountable.”
Russia has spent a significant proportion of its time pitching the U.S. as its arch enemy but has itself performed a dramatic U-turn when it comes to its rhetoric and public position on Washington now that that Trump is in charge. On Wednesday, Putin praised Russia-U.S. talks, saying he rated them “highly” and that the mood was “very friendly.”
“On the American side, there were entirely different people who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any prejudice to what was done in the past,” he said in comments translated by NBC News.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised U.S. President Donald Trump for showing “restraint” amid what he described as “hysteria” by European leaders who are angry at being left out of negotiations on Ukraine’s future.
Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Putin also praised Trump for showing “restraint” amid what he described as “hysteria” by European leaders who are angry at being left out of negotiations on Ukraine’s future.
As Ukraine confronts a potentially “dismal” outcome of the war, and massive sacrifice of human lives after three long years of war that has caused up to $500 billion worth of damage to the country, Kyiv is putting a brave face on the situation, with Zelenskyy insisting, after his dramatic falling out with Trump, that “together with America and Europe, peace can be more secure; and that is our goal.”
“This should be not only our goal, but a shared one with our partners. Especially as we approach the third anniversary of the beginning of this war – a war that we in Ukraine have wanted to end from the very first second. I am confident that we will end it, and with lasting peace. And in such a way that Russia will never be able to invade Ukraine again, that Ukrainians will return from Russian captivity, and that Ukraine will have a future,” he said.