CNN
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For three years he was the center of the room, but now it is probably uncertain whether he is even in the right place.
Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelensky was a trotemic figure with a unified Western attitude towards predatory and authoritarian Russia. The Churchillian presence forced a moral attitude towards the Kremlin’s head, which Europe had tried to divide them for years and bribe them.
But Zelensky cut down on stage numbers in Kiev on Wednesday alongside US Secretary Scott Bescent. He wanted President Donald Trump to meet in person to discuss the broad vision of peace after the US president proposed that they might meet imminently on Friday, and his The team tried to schedule it immediately. Instead, he was presented with what Zelenksy called “serious people,” and the US billionaire, the majority of financial transactions handed over by Bescent, became the money man he didn’t sign. Ta.
The news has been busy elsewhere, perhaps during Bescent’s brief visit, he made his second recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump said on Saturday they had spoken before, but the Kremlin refused to confirm it.
This time, the exchange was sweetened by the unexpected release of American prisoner Mark Vogel from Russian custody on Tuesday. Trump greeted the 61-year-old released 61-year-old wrapped in stars and stripes, offering the perfect moment of Kremlin rehabilitation in ordinary Americans’ eyes. If they’re good at sending our guys home, why not try a decent deal with Moscow?
There was a 48-hour fever dream, malaria night sweats, and Zelensky’s trembling. European leaders were traveling with him on a rattle train for a photo shoot. He is now second in Trump’s call sheet after Putin, who is under International Criminal Court indictment on alleged war crimes against Ukraine that poisons his people.
We simply don’t know the details of what Trump and Putin talked about. But we can be sure that the Kremlin’s head had been waiting for three years at this moment. Grotesque tolerance towards hundreds of Russian daily deaths is transformed into a rift of Western unity, or NATO’s European members long for being told by Americans. Guarantors are themselves.
Trump and Putin set the look tone, and Zelensky got a post brief. Trump praises Putin for using the “common sense” slogan of his campaign slogan, suggesting that the Kremlin head continues to study his enemies carefully. Trump has concluded his second post about his call with Zelensky with a notable switcher, “Blessing the people of Russia and Ukrainians to God!”
Hours ago Zelensky’s hopes for the key tenets of the peace agreement were torn apart by US Secretary of Defense Peter Hegses. Ukraine is not part of NATO. Ukraine will not return to its 2014 border. The peacekeeping forces between Russia and Ukraine are not Americans, but European or non-Europeans. Europe must take care of itself. The first two points we knew – Ukraine failed to seize territory in the 2023 counterattack, so it could be too confusing to create the world’s most sophisticated military alliance in the next decade It has sex.
However, the composition of the future peacekeeping forces was extremely important. In the interview last week, Zelensky appeared to have begun negotiating a peace agreement in the media, and Americans were involved in peacekeeping because Americans were “less worth” I was demanding that I be there. Hegseth was quick to burst its bubbles as the concept of the US inserting men and women as key targets on the most brutal battlefield on Earth.
Instead, we see the bones of peace plans appearing in public places, approaching the general, when General Keith Kellogg retired in April, rather than the envoy of the presidents of Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg proposed a peacekeeping force that Europeans made into people. He said Ukraine should give up on NATO membership. He proposed a ceasefire (and interviews suggest that the election may continue in Ukraine). And importantly, he said that Ukrainian aid should be converted to a loan that will one day be repaid. Perhaps this formed part of Bessent’s proposal for Zelensky on Wednesday.
Rare earth minerals were also discussed in Kiev on Wednesday, but this is not necessarily great news based on precedents. When Trump was temporarily seduced to support Afghanistan in 2017, trillion dollars of minerals were billed, so he signed a contract with the Taliban and was able to take over just two years later.
I hope Trump’s approach is based on more constant principles and sophisticated foundations. He and his team are clearly having a secret discussion, and it appears that Kellogg has made clear some time ago the plan that was formulated. That requires some discipline. But seeing it requires application, sin, and patience. Putin has this in large numbers, and his victory in Ukraine will determine both his personal survival, legacy and the balance of global power for decades. For Trump, the war in Ukraine was something he thought could be fixed 24 hours after he came to power, and would not have started had he come to office in 2022.
That’s not his priority. Neither is Zelensky. The man on the call sheet is Putin. He is the person he is trying to make peace, despite the fact that the United States is not technically at war in Ukraine. And that’s everything we need to know for now.
