Trump will not accept Ukraine's capitulation, no matter how much the premlin wants it – political scientist
Ukrainian political scientist and director of the "Penta" Political Studies Center, Volodymyr Fesenko, believes that Donald Trump will not agree to Ukraine's capitulation, as the kremlin desires. He stated this in a comment to OstroV.
"He (Donald Trump, – ed.) repeated what he has said several times before. Whether or not Trump mentioned Ukraine during his inaugural speech, I wouldn't make anything sensational out of it. As far as I remember, he didn’t mention either russia or China. Some joke that if Trump didn’t mention you in his speech, it’s even better – it will be calmer. For us, Trump’s priorities are clear, and they remain unchanged: it's the end of the war in Ukraine, he will try to reach it. He mentioned this in general terms, because he personally won’t be handling it, possibly apart from meeting with putin", - he said.
According to him, now attention should be paid to what representatives of the American president’s inner circle will say – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Representative for Ukraine and russia Keith Kellogg, and future National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
"They will be handling the negotiation process and preparing the U.S. position, and so far nothing sensational has happened, and I don’t think anything sensational can happen", - said Fesenko.
The political scientist believes that the only question now is who Donald Trump will meet first – putin or Zelensky.
"It seems to me that for Trump this is not significant, but for us, it is. It looks like the current plan is to conduct negotiations at the highest level with both russia and Ukraine. If putin sets additional conditions and demands, then his meeting with Trump will be later, and Zelensky might meet earlier. But first, there will be separate parallel negotiations at the highest level", - he said.
At the same time, he pointed out the obvious problem: putin is not ready for negotiations based on compromise.
"The second problem: he doesn’t want negotiations with Ukraine. Putin wants the U.S. to agree to Ukraine's capitulation and force us into it. But this is, of course, unacceptable for us. I think Trump will not agree to this, because it would mean his personal defeat. So, for now, there is a desire to start peace talks, but it is clear that there will be no quick and immediate results from these talks", - concluded political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko.
As reported earlier, the U.S. president said he plans to meet with putin "as soon as possible", and Zelensky is ready to sign a peace agreement with russia.