"Peace for Our Time": Trump talks to Putin—will history repeat itself?

UKRAINE - In Brief 13 Feb 2025 by Dmytro Boyarchuk
The ballet of peace negotiations is intensifying. Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin, claiming that the Russian leader wants peace in Ukraine. Meanwhile, newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth publicly stated that he does not believe Ukraine will regain its 2014 borders and ruled out NATO membership for the country. Additionally, the new U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, arrived in Kyiv to discuss a potential deal involving rare earth metals in exchange for U.S. support. I’d say we shouldn’t overreact to the headlines—they mostly reiterate old news, previously articulated in a more diplomatic manner. Nothing has changed for either Ukraine or Russia. There are no real preconditions for a peace deal or even a ceasefire, and a single conversation between Trump and Putin has done nothing to alter that reality. Just yesterday morning, as the Kremlin was preparing for talks with Trump, Russia launched seven ballistic missiles at Kyiv—an ironic display of its so-called 'peaceful intentions.' Both Kyiv and Moscow have simply accepted the rules of the game, aiming to appear ‘peace-seeking’ in the eyes of the U.S. president. My view remains unchanged—I don’t see how Trump’s peace deal initiative could succeed without either dismantling Ukraine as a state or defeating Russia. The former is unacceptable to Ukraine (and the EU), the latter to the Kremlin. The only real question is: who will be blamed for derailing the U.S. president’s grand effort? Zelenskiy has made it abundantly clear that he does not want to be the one. Now, we also see that Putin has embraced the same strategy—he, too, does not want to be held responsible for rejecting the peace...

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