The Art of Surrender

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been holding his breath since Donald Trump was reelected. Talks that began on a “peace” accord initiated by Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy’s invading neighbor, proposing that he yield to conditions laid down by the person who instigated the interminable and lethal conflict, abruptly took his breath away. Trump, the so-called master of the “art of the deal” (or rather, the transaction), is giving a master class in the art of capitulation.

In a “highly productive” 90-minute phone call with Russian President Putin, the U.S. president closed the books on three years of the West isolating Russia, something that the United States under the leadership of Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, most fervently advocated. Zelenskyy was only informed of the talks to launch peace negotiations after the fact.

While the Ukrainian president begged his European allies in Brussels and Munich for continued support, Trump met Putin in the landscape of a new world order where the most powerful countries decide their expansionist aims for themselves. The Ukrainians, if you believe the U.S. president, are merely geostrategic pawns between two imperialistic executioners: one military, the other psychological.

As much as American leaders have sought to temper his language, Trump, who is rarely obliged to follow the advice of his advisers, has already said it all. Ukraine “may be Russian someday.” Or not. “Maybe Russia will give up a lot” to arrive at a cease-fire. Maybe not.

On the other hand, Ukraine will certainly never regain the borders it held before Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 — territorial concessions to which Zelenskyy has already opened the door, but which Trump has now forced him to make. And Kyiv must abandon joining NATO — a distant prospect that has now been formally ruled out. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deemed these two Ukrainian aspirations “unrealistic,” his government now echoing Moscow’s categorical rejection.

Weakened by a continuing war and the people’s fatigue with his extended presidential mandate, Zelenskyy is now up against a wall.

Respect for the inviolability of territorial integrity has been officially renounced. It is a green light for Russia to do it again, or for China to follow suit.

Of course, Trump’s diplomats assert that Kyiv will have a seat at the negotiation table. And they insist that they will urge Moscow to negotiate in good faith. But in what alternative reality can we weigh these guarantees given how the U.S. president is rewriting history as he claims Russia invaded Ukraine in retaliation for Russia’s expulsion from the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations , which became the Group of Seven (Moscow was expelled precisely because of the first invasion) and that the U.S. has provided more aid to Ukraine than the EU (although the opposite is true)? Whether out of ignorance or duplicity, the U.S. president betrays his ineptitude.

Trump’s transactional diplomacy is just as obscene. Not only is President Zelenskyy losing the support of his most powerful ally, but he must also stoop to being content with not losing important U.S. military and financial support by accepting being extorted out of $500 billion in rare earth minerals in return.

NATO member states have in no way been reassured, either. Between a string of simplistic slogans and surreal recriminations, Secretary Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance have warned NATO countries that the security of the European continent is no longer an American priority (and what can be said about Canada?), and that it would fall on them to finance their own defense (at a cost of 5% of Gross Domestic Product, not the traditional 2% target). The U.S. is calling on NATO members to take charge of their own security while the U.S. negotiates with Russia over the security of their eastern flank without consulting with them.

Europe has obstinately ignored Trump’s warnings since his first term. There is no assurance that he will refrain from disengaging his troops from the alliance’s military exercises this time.

Zelenskyy had hoped last week to convince NATO members to promise the security guarantees necessary for an end to the war. But he came away empty-handed, abandoned by Trump along with all of Europe.

Though the U.S. may remain a member of NATO for now, it is no longer an ally.