Ukraine could use a Trump peace deal to buy some time

After Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, Western leaders repeated constantly that they would stand behind Kyiv "as long as it takes", first as Ukraine struck back, then as Russia counterattacked.

- MARK ALMOND

But the costly bloodletting and Europe’s inability to sustain Ukraine’s munitions and monetary needs was skinning those proud commitments to the bone even before the spectre of Donald Trump’s return to the White House became a nightmarish reality. But Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t a tap dancer for nothing. His footwork is far more deft than his European partners’. The Russians have already found that to their cost.

Zelensky’s warm words about Donald Trump are not just positioning for the new president. Trump’s talk of “peace through strength” offers the Ukrainian president a chance to profile himself as the pilot who steered Ukraine, or most of it, to safety under an American umbrella. Getting in well with Trump could buy Ukraine, and Zelensky himself, time to reconstruct its economy while hoping for things to go wrong for Putin at home or abroad.

Trump wants to brandish a peace deal on day one of his presidency, and Zelensky can try to use that impatience to get Ukraine a better deal than Joe Biden’s dogged backing for a war of attrition. Kyiv’s law banning talks with a Putin-run Kremlin will have to go out of the window. But, as his Sky News interview showed, Zelensky hopes to lock in the Americans any which way by guaranteeing a peace deal, even one which leaves Crimea and the Donbas under Russian control.