“It’s like two theatrical performances unfolding side by side, before an audience of one. The peace process surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reached a remarkable impasse. On one stage, European allies and Kyiv are scrambling to turn US demands and threats into something resembling a plan that might satisfy President Donald Trump. On the”, — write on: www.cnn.com
It’s like two theatrical performances unfolding side by side, before an audience of one.
The peace process surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reached a remarkable impasse.
On one stage, European allies and Kyiv are scrambling to turn US demands and threats into something resembling a plan that might satisfy President Donald Trump. On the other, the Kremlin has its own show: envoy Kirill Dmitriev offers business opportunities designed to appeal to a mercantile US president, draw him further into Moscow’s orbit and allow Russia’s crawling frontline advance to proceed. Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, flit between the two productions. Yet the two plots remain separate and contemptuous of each other, with no denouement in sight.
When Trump speaks of a deal with Russia, one fact outweighs all others: Moscow’s idea of peace is basically victory. The Kremlin has been blunt about its demands, even in their least maximalist form. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to surrender the Donbas without further fighting. He has also long entertained Ukraine’s demilitarization, a pledge never to join NATO and a change of leadership in Kyiv — all impractical or impossible in wartime. Russia’s pragmatist-in-chief has therefore settled on the Donbas as an attainable negotiating goal, while pressure grows on Kyiv to concede.
Why does Zelensky not simply yield? Reasons to do so grow as what remains of the Donbas becomes less habitable by the day. Russian drones stalk Kramatorsk, the largest population center, hunting civilians around the clock. Sloviansk, Dobropillia and Kostyantynivka are either ruins or targets for Russian glide bombs: places of great military importance, but little remaining civilian life.
Yet the clearest case for why Ukraine cannot simply abandon the Donbas came from none other than Trump’s National security adviser, and possible successor, Marco Rubio. Russia controls all but 11% of the Donetsk region, while Ukraine describes the remainder as the “defensive line that they’ve embedded themselves in,” he said, in an interview with Breitbart News. “They argue, and military strategists say is true, that it is the last defensible line… From there, it’s just a straight shot into Kyiv.” He added that Russia is not really advancing and has therefore switched to “applying extraordinary pain on the people of Ukraine through drone strikes, through ballistic missile strikes, trying to destroy their energy infrastructure, their electricity.” Ukraine, in turn, is striking Russian refineries.
He acknowledged Kushner and Witkoff’s efforts, but ultimately concluded: “We’d like the war to end, but ultimately we also have other priorities around the world we’re focused on as well.”
Rubio spent 45 minutes on the phone with Zelensky on Tuesday, suggesting he may be more invested in the outcome than this closing remark implies. But his lowered expectations reflect the reality of these two separate onstage peace performances. Ukraine wants to survive; Russia wants to win, and still believes it can.
If one of the sounder minds in the White House sees peace as a long shot at best, what did the past 10 days of US-Ukrainian fallout achieve? Did it get Trump any closer to the deal he says he wants?
Trump has offered a striking array of pro-Russian incentives to draw Moscow towards a peace whose terms he has yet to define. It looks like pressure for its own sake — and to Putin’s immediate advantage.
The list of Trump gifts to Moscow is extensive: a sudden diesel deal likely to throw billions into Putin’s war chest; an energy ceasefire (unilaterally announced by Trump and apparently unknown to either side), that slowed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for several days. There were also restrictions on vital Starlink technology that affected Ukraine’s defensive and offensive operations; limits on intelligence sharing that left Ukraine without warning of ballistic missile attacks for at least several nights; and repeated calls for Zelensky to leave office. Add to that the monthslong collapse of US financial support for Ukraine, with Europe now paying for military aid. If Putin could write US policy, it might look much like this.