US President Donald Trump’s recent statements have by now fully aligned with those coming from the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, on the front line, the Russian army has had no advantage for almost a year. Indeed, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is counterattacking and liberating settlements in the Donbas itself – the region Putin has identified as a key objective for the Russian military.
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Against this backdrop, Trump has partially lifted energy sanctions on Russia and announced an agreement to import several hundred thousand tons of diesel fuel from Russia to the US.
Then, under the guise of a peace plan, Trump began issuing ultimatums to Ukraine, demanding that it stop striking Russian oil refineries, and calling for “no strikes on oil refining facilities.” The plan is supposedly bilateral but is, in practice, one-sided in Ukraine’s case, since Ukraine has only one oil refinery, which Russia has already destroyed.
After the ultimatum, Trump went further, declaring that Ukraine “should get” a new president because he was dissatisfied with Zelensky’s refusal to sign a “peace agreement.”
Predictably, this was followed by threats to stop supplying Ukraine with intelligence about Russian ballistic missile strikes against Ukrainian civilian targets.
By Oct. 13, after the initial emotions and passions had subsided, new US proposals for a peace agreement were revealed by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. There has been some progress: the Russian demands for territorial concessions are no longer repeated.
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The denial follows reports that Washington threatened to halt intelligence sharing and weapons purchases unless Kyiv stopped striking Russian oil refineries.
Ukrainian reaction
The reaction of most Ukrainians to the latest developments is extremely sharp.
“Trump’s energy truce means that Ukraine does not strike Russian oil refineries that are operating, while Russia does not strike the Ukrainian refinery that is not operating. The next step in Trump’s incredible plan will be to announce a ceasefire. Ukraine will have to promise not to strike the Russian army, and Russia will give its word not to strike the Russian army. And peace will immediately follow,” investment banker Serhiy Fursa wrote.
“The overall strategy has long been clear: blame Ukraine for your own miscalculations and use Russian oil refineries as an example, while shielding a target that is genuinely painful for the Russians. The figures for Russian diesel supplies to the US are not what matters here. What matters is the violation of laws passed by Congress, as well as the creation of new precedents for cooperation and business with the Russian war machine,” said Olha Aivazovska, head of the OPORA civil society analytical group.
“By refusing to provide us with intelligence on the trajectories of missile attacks against Ukraine, America is, in effect, becoming complicit in Russia’s murder of Ukrainian civilians,” said Oleksandr Shvets, editor-in-chief of the Fakty newspaper.
A member of the Cabinet of Ministers told Kyiv Post that Trump’s move had come as a complete surprise to Ukrainians.
“This is simply unthinkable. It is a betrayal of every allied position. It is worse than the Russians,” he said.
Why do Trump and Putin need the diesel deal?
The US president’s motives are clearly an attempt to forestall an Election Day disaster for Republicans on Nov. 3. He hopes, at the very least, to convince Americans that he is doing something about sky-high fuel prices.
Putin’s motives, however, are more perhaps more complex. Despite the negligible export volumes, Russian experts believe he can present the deal to a war-weary Russian population as a victory –signaling renewed warming of relations and rapprochement with the US.
“What does Putin need this for? To damage Trump’s relations with Zelensky and Europe, which, like Zelensky, has condemned the deal. And to try to use it as leverage, so that Trump pressures Zelensky to restrict Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries,” wrote Russian economist Kirill Rogov.
Zelensky is presented as the problem… again
Among other things, Trump said that Ukraine should “have a new president” because, supposedly, Zelensky did not want to sign a peace agreement – a capitulation in a war that Ukraine is not losing.
Numerous analyses have been published in Ukraine and elsewhere showing that the various peace-plan proposals put forward by Russia through US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were effectively one-sided. They took into account only the aggressor’s demands, in a form that was absolutely unacceptable to Ukraine. In particular, Russia wanted to obtain, without a fight, territories where its army had made no progress over the preceding four years despite suffering heavy losses.
Trump’s statements about the need to replace Ukraine’s president are fundamentally at odds with the principles of a democratic country – the kind of country Trump represents.
First, elections cannot be held in Ukraine during wartime because most people living near the front line, in occupied territories, or as refugees, as well as those currently fighting on the front line, would be unable to vote.
Second, holding elections during the war without the participation of Zelensky’s main competitors – who are senior officers or generals and therefore cannot leave their posts while martial law remains in force – could produce a result Trump would not expect: Zelensky would have a strong chance of winning.
Third, the issue goes far beyond the president. According to opinion polls, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians do not want to make concessions to Moscow. Nor is there any evidence of declining morale in the army or of soldiers wanting to hand over anything to Russia.
The main reason is that everyone understands that as soon as Putin gets one territory, he will use it as a base to attack others and demand those as well – endlessly.
“The issue is not Zelensky. It is the Ukrainian army and Ukrainian civil society that do not want to capitulate to Moscow. To think that changing the president will change Ukrainians’ approach to the war is nonsense. But Donald Trump has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the nature of Russian aggression against Ukraine since the very beginning of his presidency. He likewise fails to understand the essence of Ukrainian resistance,” said writer and journalist Radomyr Mokryk.
Not even the ‘peace party’ can accept capitulation
Ukraine’s political discourse includes not only the determination to continue resisting Russia but also a willingness to hold peace talks with Russia and make concessions to the aggressor.
This tendency is represented by various politicians. Some are trying to establish themselves among the military “heavyweights,” while others are seeking to appeal to Trump. Still others are simply trying to capitalize on the war fatigue felt by part of society, along with constant power outages and the fear of being killed by shelling far from the front line.
This group is informally known as the “peace party.”
Among the many politicians associated with this tendency are figures of varying stature. They include MPs Oleksiy Honcharenko and Danylo Hetmantsev, and Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
It is important to note, however, that none of them supports capitulation exclusively on Russia’s terms, let alone handing over territories that the Ukrainian army firmly controls.
For example, Honcharenko, who has faced a wave of public condemnation and accusations of capitulationism, explained his position as follows:
“Peace cannot be achieved with a single decision. Yes, we will have to discuss compromises, but compromise is not capitulation. It means finding terms under which Ukraine can end the war, obtain real security guarantees, and preserve its national interests. We must not give Russia anything. Every agreement must take Ukrainian interests into account,” Honcharenko said.
Even with such wording, however, he faced devastating criticism on social media.
The issues of existential survival and capitulation lie largely outside the political sphere and do not depend on the identity of the president or members of parliament.
Attempts to change or dismiss this reality are naturally perceived as a form of coercion into capitulation, and anyone engaged in such efforts is seen as Putin’s accomplice and complicit in Russian aggression. This is the dividing line between “peace” and “capitulation.”