With president Trump announcing the start of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is set to sit down with senior US officials, including vice-president JD Vance, on the sidelines of this week’s Munich Security Conference. A common theme has emerged during the numerous interviews he has given to Western news organisations over the last few weeks: while Ukraine is ready for peace talks with Vladimir Putin, it requires a firm security guarantee from its foreign backers.
Zelensky’s requests aren’t new, of course. Nor are they unreasonable from Ukraine’s standpoint. Putin’s invasion has gutted the country’s economy, killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, and razed entire cities to the ground. Russia controls approximately 20 per cent of Ukrainian territory, and the ongoing Russian offensive in Donetsk continues to chip away at Ukraine’s defensive lines. The Ukrainian army’s incursion into Kursk, designed to force Putin to re-allocate forces from Eastern Ukraine, remains an embarrassment for Moscow but has nevertheless failed to decrease, let alone stop, the pace of Russia’s operations. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army’s manpower problems are growing more acute with every day the war proceeds,
All of this is no doubt weighing on Zelensky’s mind, particularly at a time when the Trump administration’s peace plans remain opaque. The last thing the Ukrainian government wants is a negotiated deal that stops the war but doesn’t necessarily end it – or worse, is unenforceable to the point where Putin feels he can resume offensive operations at some point in the future. This is why Zelensky is harping on about US security guarantees; he appears to believe that, without Uncle Sam as his insurance policy, Ukraine could be experiencing the same nightmare one, two, or five years after a deal is signed.
Yet what is good for Ukraine is not necessarily good for the United States. While this may sound odd given that both countries rightly view Russia as the aggressor, their interests are not identical. Ukraine’s objective is to win the war or at least negotiate peace on its terms.
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