Ukraine survives another crisis with Donald Trump

IT MIGHT have been one of Ukraine’s darkest hours. Its front lines are buckling; its home front is seething over a corruption scandal; and its American ally has issued an ultimatum to agree to a Russia-friendly peace deal.

Now dawn may be coming. Instead of the abandonment of Ukraine, Marco Rubio, the American national-security adviser and secretary of state, announced a reconciliation of sorts. He emerged part-way through emergency talks with Ukrainian and European officials in Geneva to announce unexpected progress in the Trump administration’s effort to end nearly four years of war in Ukraine. “This was a very, very meaningful, I would say probably best meeting and day we’ve had so far in this entire process,” declared Mr Rubio. Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s chief aide, concurred that “we are moving forward to the just and lasting peace.”

As talks were set to continue in the coming days—Mr Rubio said it was a “work in progress”—any agreement in Geneva will need to be approved by both Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump, perhaps at a meeting in Washington. But the Thanksgiving deadline for an agreement, and the threat of Ukraine losing access to American intelligence and vital weapons, have been dispelled, at least for now.

All this makes for striking change from the ominous meeting in Kyiv just three days earlier, when Dan Driscoll, the Pentagon’s army secretary, delivered a 28-point plan to Mr Zelensky that was so one-sided as to look like a Russian wish-list, mixed with Trumpian economic tribute. Wags fed it into artificial intelligence, which concluded it had been translated from Russian.

The plan emerged from talks between Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s credulous special envoy to Russia, and Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy of Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader. The talks in Miami also involved Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, and Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s national-security chief.

The version leaked last week demanded the surrender of fortified territory in Ukraine’s Donbas region that Russia has failed to conquer; a reduction of the Ukrainian army to 600,000 soldiers (about 25% below current strength); and a constitutional change to permanently exclude NATO membership.

Western sanctions on Russia would be lifted, and it would be welcomed back into the G8 club of powerful economies. Frozen Russian assets, earmarked for reparations, would in part be diverted to a new fund spent on joint American-Russian projects. Europe would provide $100bn for Ukraine’s rebuilding, while America would claim half the profits from reconstruction projects and take a stake in Ukraine’s gas infrastructure.

An American security guarantee, with language ostensibly based on NATO’s Article 5 but without its military integration, looks flimsy. America would “receive compensation” for the guarantee. Moreover, the plan bans Western troops from Ukraine, which would rule out a planned European “reassurance force”.

How many of these and other onerous terms have been negotiated away in Geneva has yet to be disclosed, but significant damage has already been done. For one thing, the plan will complicate European moves to seize frozen Russian assets.

More seriously, the plan (believed to have been leaked by Russia) has exposed confusion, rivalry and incompetence within the Trump administration. Mr Witkoff, once again, comes off as a patsy. J.D. Vance, once again, emerges as the force seeking to derail relations between America and Ukraine. In February the American vice-president provoked the televised bust-up between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky at the White House. This time he pushed a patently pro-Russian plan. It was Mr Vance who called Mr Zelensky to set out its terms; and it was Mr Driscoll, Mr Vance’s college friend, who delivered the message in person.

But then, as now, it was Mr Rubio who laboured to put things back on track by finding an agreement with the Ukrainians. That said, Mr Rubio seemed woefully out of the loop, at one point calling worried senators from his plane to reassure them that the plan was a Russian document, as they recounted the conversation. Then, seemingly backpedalling on the backpedal within hours, he denied the senators’ version, posting on the X social-media platform that the plan was, after all, “authored by the US”.

As for Mr Trump, he again betrayed his underlying bias: sympathy for Russia and indifference to Ukraine. Ahead of the Geneva talks he dismissively said Mr Zelensky “can continue to fight his little heart out” if no agreement were reached, and complained on social media that “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS.”

Even if a more Ukraine-friendly deal gets past Mr Trump, it will almost certainly be blocked by Russia; and any deal acceptable to Russia is likely to be voted down by an increasingly sceptical Ukrainian parliament. All this may bring another crisis soon. But for Mr Zelensky, every day of survival will feel like a victory. ■