From left: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo / Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin made an impression in both phone calls, but the second was much more ominous than the first.
Before hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Donald Trump had drawn a startling conclusion after listening attentively to the Russian leader for two-and-a-half hours.
The United States President decided the Kremlin was desperate for Ukraine to flourish and eager to help make it happen.
But when, following the conclusion of the Mar-a-Lago talks, Putin called back yesterday his mood had soured.
While Zelenskyy had been busy talking peace, he thundered, the Ukrainians had tried to kill him, purportedly firing drones at one of his residences in northern Russia.
Despite some astonishing language from Trump in Putin’s defence, the Florida meeting had gone about as well as the Ukrainian President could have hoped.
But the drone claim now threatens to derail the process for two reasons.
It provides the Kremlin with a pretext to reject the peace deal Trump is attempting to broker, and it gives Moscow an opportunity to persuade a US president often receptive to Russian narratives that Zelenskyy is the villain.
Indeed, a “very angry” Trump appeared to support the Kremlin narrative in comments outside Mar-a-Lago yesterday, saying: “It’s one thing to be offensive because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that.”
The Kremlin, which said it intercepted all the drones, provided no evidence for the alleged attack, which Zelenskyy swiftly denounced as a lie. That did not stop Moscow from announcing a sharp shift.
“Given the final degeneration of the criminal Kyiv regime, which has switched to a policy of state terrorism, Russia’s negotiating position will be revised,” Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said in a statement, signalling possible retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian government buildings.
How the US President responds to what Kyiv sees as a transparent attempt to sabotage the peace process remains unclear.
Even now, after a year of repeatedly being blindsided by the Russian leader, Trump resolutely refuses to think badly of Putin.
If there has been a way to put a positive spin on Putin’s actions, the US President has invariably found it.
He outdid himself after his talks with Mr Zelenskyy, telling his astonished guest that Putin’s overriding message was simple: “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed”.
Zelenskyy, who has mastered the art of the poker face in his dealings with Trump, briefly struggled to contain himself as an instinctive – if hollow – laugh escaped his lips.
Trump and his aides have echoed Russian talking points before, but rarely so starkly.
In effect, the US President was portraying Russia as having invaded Ukraine more in sorrow than in anger – a regrettable necessity to correct the course of a misguided child.
Zelenskyy recovered quickly, thanking his host profusely both in person and later online.
For all that Trump’s instincts again lay exposed, Ukraine and its European allies have made progress in nudging Washington on to a less destructive path. Whether that alignment can now be sustained is in doubt.
Trump’s attempts to force through a Ukraine-Russia peace deal follow a familiar pattern.
First comes the opener, in which Russian and US positions are almost indistinguishable, accompanied by pressure on Kyiv to accept a humiliating capitulation.
Then follows Act Two: A frantic European scramble to soften the plan, producing a compromise proposal that Moscow duly rejects.
In the present iteration, the process has reached Act Three.
European leaders were sounding upbeat. Trump said a deal was “getting a lot closer”. Zelenskyy judged it “90% ready”.
With its drone claim, however, Putin appears intent on propelling events straight into Act Four: collapse.
Still, not all is lost. Agreement has apparently been reached on providing Ukraine with the Western security guarantees it needs to prevent Russia using a ceasefire to regroup and strike again.
Details remain scant, but the plan envisages a robust, 800,000-strong Ukrainian Army, backed by European forces deployed inside and a legally binding, congressionally approved US security guarantee.
How long that guarantee would last remains contested. Trump has suggested 15 years; Zelenskyy wants up to 50.
The unresolved “10%”, however, is the hardest.
Zelenskyy has identified two obstacles. The first is the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, seized by Russia in March 2022.
Trump’s revised plan proposes joint ownership between Ukraine, the US and Russia.
For Zelenskyy, collaboration with Moscow at Europe’s largest power station is unworkable.
He has instead proposed joint US-Ukrainian control, with Washington free to decide how to use its share of the output.
Diplomats believe a compromise remains possible.
Far more intractable is the Donbas, where Russia is demanding territory it has failed to seize militarily since first invading Ukraine in 2014.
For Kyiv, surrendering its “fortress belt” would mean yielding the high ground to Russia and exposing the lowlands to the west.
Zelenskyy has signalled a willingness to demilitarise Ukrainian-held territory – subject to a referendum – but only if Russia withdraws by a similar distance to create a substantial, internationally monitored buffer zone.
Despite optimistic rhetoric, the talks were effectively stalled even before Putin’s interjection.
Any deal that gives Ukraine a credible chance of survival through firm security guarantees and a tolerable settlement in the Donbas is likely to be rejected by the Kremlin, which demands full control of the region and the absence of any Western troops from Ukrainian territory.
The Russian-held nuclear plant is on the front line of the conflict
So long as Trump remains even loosely aligned with Ukraine, Zelenskyy may have tolerated stalemate. But he knows better than most how mercurial the US President can be – and where his true sympathies lie.
Putin, after all, was welcomed to the US in August with full ceremony, Trump waiting for him at the end of a red carpet in Alaska. When Zelenskyy arrived in Florida this weekend, there was no red carpet and no welcome at all.
That disparity – and the fragility of the US-Ukrainian relationship it symbolises – will not have been lost on either the Ukrainian or Russian leaders.
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