View from London: Fall guy – Trump’s Russia deal is aimed at ousting Zelensky

Trump and Zelensky met at the hour of the Pope's funeral in the Vatican. Immediately after Trump cut short his visit to Rome and urgently flew to the United States.
Photo: AFP

The intense time pressure piled on the Zelensky government was not only because Trump was hungry for a victory lap before the 100-th day of his administration, which falls on April 30, but because Putin wants to celebrate his own military victory on May 9, the day of an 80th anniversary parade marking the Soviet victory over Hitler, writes ‘The Times’.

From the beginning, the “peace plan” has been a joint Russian-American project to sideline Ukraine and move on to more profitable ventures. The strategic point is the end of Zelensky’s credibility and the implosion of his government. Zelensky, resented for his global popularity (as measured in front-page stories — the Mar-a-Lago barometer), has become Trump’s fall guy, another sign that Joe Biden only backed losers.

Peace in Ukraine would probably require a government of national unity, perhaps under the leadership of the businessman Petro Poroshenko — a coalition that could stomach the surrender of Crimea.

It is difficult to see how Zelensky can reinvent himself under Trump and Putin’s joint cosh. But for now, his political space is disappearing by the day.

Trump’s apparent success has been to pressure an embarrassed Europe into increasing its defence spending, though not necessarily to protect Ukraine.

However, Britain and France have had experience with wartime leaders who bow out, and will come to accept that his time is running out. If the Europeans, the coalition of the willing, had been able to play more than a walk-on role in the Trump-scripted “peace-process”, they could now argue more strongly.

Now, though, they are mere bystanders, as illustrated by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and his last-minute withdrawal from this week’s London conference and the envoy Steve Witkoff’s departure to Moscow.

The peace plan is literally indefensible. It formally recognises Russian Crimea, ensures that Kyiv gives up its dream of NATO membership, lifts American sanctions against Russia and gives Ukraine no security guarantees. The idea that Ukraine will be rebuilt by using frozen Russian assets has been swept aside.

Ukraine will be exactly as Putin wants it and potentially led by someone friendly to Moscow.

Zelensky and his advisers should have anticipated what would happen under a different US administration and accepted that a de facto military stalemate demanded some kind of fortified ceasefire, a recalibrated relationship with their western sponsors.

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