Wednesday’s phone call between US President Donald Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated a radical shift in Washington’s stance. Prior to this, there had been no direct communication between the US and Moscow since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, Trump has said that he hopes to meet Putin in Saudi Arabia for “peace talks” to end the war. However, he did not say anything to suggest that Ukraine would be included in the meeting.
Furthermore, Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has declared that Ukraine must be prepared to cede territory currently under Russian occupation in exchange for peace. He also made clear that the US “does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Kyiv “will not accept” any agreements made without Ukraine’s involvement. It was crucial, he said, that “everything does not go according to Putin’s plan.” In this case, Putin apparently wishes to conduct bilateral negotiations exclusively with the US.
Zelenskyy is urging Europe to come to the table and participate in negotiations to end Russia’s war of aggression. His conversation with Trump took place only after the US president had first called Putin. However, the Ukrainian leader said he did not believe that Trump was favoring Russia in doing so. He did, however, concede that it was “not pleasant.”
Meanwhile, Iryna Herashchenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament for the opposition party European Solidarity led by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, criticized Zelenskyy on social media. “At such a difficult time for Ukraine, I wish the president would follow the example of our European partners, who issued a joint statement demanding Europe’s participation in future negotiations,” she wrote. Herashchenko also expressed concerns that the recent US-Russia bilateral talk was “a violation of the principle ‘Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.'”
However, while some politicians and media outlets see Trump’s phone call with Putin as a “betrayal” of Ukraine, experts speaking with DW did not agree. “I do not share the opinion that the US will negotiate with Russia without Ukraine,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, CEO of Penta, a center for political studies in Kyiv. “If that were the case, Trump would not have spoken to Zelenskyy immediately after Putin. The fact that he informed Zelenskyy about the next steps means that Ukraine is still involved.”
Nonetheless, Fesenko does fear that Trump may negotiate first and foremost with Russia. “Putin will try to pressure Trump on key issues at the meeting in Saudi Arabia, and force the US to put pressure on Zelenskyy. At present, though, the US still maintains the position that Ukraine has to be part of the negotiations. So it’s too early to draw dire conclusions,” he said.
