Possible scenarios for the war in Ukraine

Source: The Daily Telegraph (original title: Ukraine needs to give up on joining Nato)
Translation: Telegrafi.com

According to Donald Trump, this could be the week the war in Ukraine ends. "I hope that, this week, Russia and Ukraine will reach an agreement," Trump wrote on Twitter. Social Truth"Both countries will then start doing big business with the United States of America, which is booming, and will gain wealth"!

The details of a ceasefire – or “deal,” as Trump prefers to call it – will be discussed in London this week, as Trump’s top negotiators meet with Ukrainian and European officials.

What exactly is on the table remains officially secret. But some key details have emerged through media leaks and interviews with Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor — and Trump ally — who was in St. Petersburg earlier this month negotiating with Putin.

One key point is that Ukraine's membership in NATO is no longer an option. Another is that Russia wants Kiev to officially recognize Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, as Russian territory.

Are both of these demands serious violations of Ukraine's sovereignty? No doubt. They are also politically suicidal for Volodymyr Zelensky.

But it is important to turn the question upside down: Does Ukraine have any practical military or diplomatic path to retake Crimea? Or, is there any real chance that Kiev will fully join NATO, despite the strong opposition of many key alliance states?

The answer to both questions is no. In practical terms, by accepting Crimea's new sovereign status or by declaring itself officially neutral, Ukraine loses nothing that it hasn't already lost.

Moreover, at least three of the Ukrainian negotiators in the last round of face-to-face peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul, in March 2022, have publicly stated that their side was willing to accept neutrality – that is, not NATO membership – as well as leave the final status of Crimea for discussion at a later stage.

In other words, Kiev was ready to give up both Crimea and NATO within the first month of Putin's occupation.

However, there is another circumstance here: Whatever Zelensky was or was not willing to accept in Istanbul, in 2022, the full withdrawal of Russian troops was demanded in return. Such a withdrawal is no longer on the table at all.

Indeed, Witkoff has implied that Russia continues to seek full control over the four provinces it unilaterally annexed to the Russian Federation in September 2022 – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson. This would mean that Zelensky would voluntarily cede even more territory to the occupier – another clear political impossibility.

The Kremlin's unwavering stance and Washington's apparent support for this hard line beg two questions. The first is whether Putin really wants the peace talks to succeed.

The second is whether Trump has any will to force Putin to make any concessions – for example, as he has previously threatened, by imposing secondary sanctions on countries that import Russian oil, a move that would fundamentally hit the Kremlin’s war economy.

Putin's broken promise of a ceasefire over Easter – an agreement his troops violated hundreds of times – suggests that his peace offers are a sham.

The Kremlin seems to believe that time is on Russia's side, and that the longer the ground attacks and air strikes continue, the weaker Ukraine will become. Putin seems more interested in placing the blame for the failure of the talks on Ukraine.

As for the US, there are strong signs that the Trump team has already negotiated a deal acceptable to the Kremlin and is now trying to impose those harsh conditions on Ukraine and its remaining European allies.

The fact that the demands Trump is making on behalf of the Kremlin amount to rewriting Europe's internationally recognized borders, at the behest of an aggressive dictator, seems to be of no consequence.

Trump once promised a quick end to the war in Ukraine. But his boasting has run afoul of the immovable object of Putin’s stubbornness. His response seems to be to accept all of Putin’s demands — and then walk away from the talks when Ukraine and Europe reject them.

“I tried to bring peace,” he will say, “and, moreover, to make you rich.” In this way, Trump can absolve himself of both the failure of his beautiful deal and the bloodshed that will surely follow. /Telegraph/