US-Russia talks close to ending Ukraine war

Zelenskyy's stance in effect is that he will accept no agreement in which he is not involved, despite his record of bad faith.

- M.D. NALAPAT

European countries have allowed themselves to become part of the problem where the Russia-Ukraine conflict is concerned, hence it is no surprise that they were excluded from the talks which took place in Riyadh between Russia and the US about measures for ending the war. It is a surprise that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine and his European counterparts question the value of discussions from which they were excluded. Countless meetings have taken place in Europe and in the US about the war and ensuring a stable peace, and in none of these was Russia included. They saw nothing amiss in a peace conference from which one of the two adversaries was excluded, but now protest the exclusion of the Europeans and especially Ukraine from the Riyadh confabulations between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. As President Trump has made clear, the Ukrainian issue is a European problem and must be settled by the Europeans themselves. True, under President Biden, the US was far and away the biggest booster of the conflict, but that administration was voted out by the people of the US in November and Donald Trump handed a second term in the White House. There are reports that President Trump would like half of the profits of Ukrainian oil and gas exports to go to the US Treasury. If so, the suggestion ought not to be met with shock. After all, for quite some time, much before he was sworn in as the 47th President of the US, Trump has demanded that Ukraine compensate the US for the vast amounts of money spent by Biden on the war since 2022. Where Zelenskyy is concerned, his stance in effect is that he will accept no agreement in which