Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Washington ahead of a summit today which could change the course of history. US President Donald Trump indicated in a Truth Social post overnight that he will demand Ukraine surrender huge swathes of its territory to Russia in order to end the war. European leaders have scrambled to converge on Washington today to surround Zelenskyy at the summit to convince both him and Trump that Ukraine does not need to surrender. But given that these same leaders have spent this summer surrendering over and over, can we expect this swarming strategy to work?
“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote. He said Ukraine must give up Crimea and pledge not to join NATO. Trump reportedly will convey Putin’s message to Zelenskyy that Moscow will end the war if Ukraine also gives the Donbas region to Russia - both areas Russia currently military controls after invading and areas that it does not yet control. Trump also reposted a Truth Social post from a MAGA supporter named Lorraine that said, “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory to Russia otherwise the longer the war goes on they will keep losing even more land.”
Zelenskyy responded with a post on X: “Peace must be lasting. Not like it was years ago, when…Ukraine was given so called ‘security guarantees’ in 1994, but they didn’t work.” The message is clear: surrendering Donbas would be a Munich appeasement moment that will embolden Russia, giving it valuable springboarding land for a future attack against Ukraine and the European Union and setting up expectations for Ukraine to return to being a vassal state of Russia as it was from 2010 to 2014.
But at the same time Zelenskyy demonstrated the difficulty (or impossibility) of defying a US diktat, adding: “Our people will always be grateful to President Trump.” I doubt anyone in Ukraine, other than pro-Russians, is feeling grateful to President Trump right now. But this is the same messaging that’s been coming from our European leaders the past months - desperate flattery of the man who controls this continent and holds the future of Ukraine in the palm of his hand.
To protect Zelenskyy from another White House ambush, four European presidents and prime ministers are hurriedly flying to Washington right now to surround him at the meeting. Their plan, we’re told, is to