(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was hoping to leave the White House on Friday with a commitment for long-range US Tomahawk missiles that can strike Russia. Instead, Zelensky once again found himself on the losing end of his strained relationship with President Trump. After musing about providing Tomahawks and even declaring that Ukraine was positioned to recapture all of its territory, Trump rejected Zelensky’s request and urged him to cede the Donbas region to Moscow.
“[Trump] said Putin will destroy you if you don’t agree now,” a source told the Washington Post. “It was pretty much like ‘no, look guys, you can’t possibly win back any territory. … There is nothing we can do to save you. You should try to give diplomacy another chance.’” According to a European official, Trump is now “saying the U.S. needs Tomahawks, and doesn’t want to escalate.”
Trump’s renewed aversion to escalation followed a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who initiated the conversation to lobby against Zelensky’s request. Putin likely conveyed a stark warning. For Ukraine to fire Tomahawks at Russia, the US military would have to do the job inside Ukrainian territory. And because the Tomahawks are technically nuclear-capable, Russia, by its own military doctrine and the logic of basic deterrence, would have to fire back beyond Ukraine. Given the abundance of US military assets near its borders, Russia would have no shortage of targets.
“[Trump] said Putin will destroy you if you don’t agree now,” a source told the Washington Post. “It was pretty much like ‘no, look guys, you can’t possibly win back any territory. … There is nothing we can do to save you. You should try to give diplomacy another chance.’” According to a European official, Trump is now “saying the U.S. needs Tomahawks, and doesn’t want to escalate.”
Trump’s renewed aversion to escalation followed a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who initiated the conversation to lobby against Zelensky’s request. Putin likely conveyed a stark warning. For Ukraine to fire Tomahawks at Russia, the US military would have to do the job inside Ukrainian territory. And because the Tomahawks are technically nuclear-capable, Russia, by its own military doctrine and the logic of basic deterrence, would have to fire back beyond Ukraine. Given the abundance of US military assets near its borders, Russia would have no shortage of targets.
To sway Trump, Putin has reportedly backed off his June 2024 claim to all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, suggesting that he would accept a peace deal that leaves Russia in full control of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. That would require a Ukrainian withdrawal from the roughly 12% of Donetsk that it still holds. In rejecting this demand, Zelensky and his allies have argued that Russia, if granted all of the Donbas, would not stop there.
Yet Zelensky faces a more immediate threat: a powerful ultra-nationalist wing that will not accept any ceding of territory, and, to hammer the message home, is willing to threaten the elected president’s life. “If Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse — politically, and then for real,” Serhii Sterneneko of Right Sector recently told the Times of London. “It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it.”
Because of this internal time-bomb, Zelensky squandered a longstanding opportunity to keep the Donbas as part of Ukraine in the form of the 2015 Minsk accords, which would have given Kyiv control of the Donbas by granting its breakaway republics limited autonomy. In her memoir, German Chancellor Angela Merkel recounted that Zelensky refused to live up to Ukraine’s end of the bargain.
On the key issue of restoring Ukrainian control over its border with Russia, “Zelensky wanted Ukrainian control before the local elections, whereas the Minsk Package of Measures did not allow for this until after they had taken place.” Putin, by contrast, “insisted on the wording of the Minsk agreements.”
Keep reading Aaron Maté on Substack.
Yet Zelensky faces a more immediate threat: a powerful ultra-nationalist wing that will not accept any ceding of territory, and, to hammer the message home, is willing to threaten the elected president’s life. “If Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse — politically, and then for real,” Serhii Sterneneko of Right Sector recently told the Times of London. “It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it.”
Because of this internal time-bomb, Zelensky squandered a longstanding opportunity to keep the Donbas as part of Ukraine in the form of the 2015 Minsk accords, which would have given Kyiv control of the Donbas by granting its breakaway republics limited autonomy. In her memoir, German Chancellor Angela Merkel recounted that Zelensky refused to live up to Ukraine’s end of the bargain.
On the key issue of restoring Ukrainian control over its border with Russia, “Zelensky wanted Ukrainian control before the local elections, whereas the Minsk Package of Measures did not allow for this until after they had taken place.” Putin, by contrast, “insisted on the wording of the Minsk agreements.”
Keep reading Aaron Maté on Substack.