Where Ukraine-Russia Stand Before Today’s Talks

We knew from the beginning that Ukraine couldn’t win against Russia. Russia has three times the military and far more munitions, plus they have nuclear weapons. The Biden war could have ended in the beginning when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson blew it up. We never heard the previous administration talk of peace and there was no plan, just cash and munitions.

The more they fight, the more Ukraine loses land, and the more people die on each side.

The EU and the Biden administration skipped diplomacy completely, and continually escalated. It wasn’t only Russia escalating.

President Trump told Zelensky to give up Crimea and NATO. Crimea was given up by President Obama in 2014.

LAYING OUT DEMANDS

Key Putin aide and top Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev reshared a social media post by President Donald Trump. It laid out demands for Ukraine.

Kirill reshared Trump’s post on TruthSocial late Sunday night, in which the president said Ukraine could end the war if it gave in to key Russian demands – including giving up Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and agreeing to never join NATO.

“(Trump) and his team are pushing for the real solution. Let problem solving and peace prevail during the Big Day,” Dmitriev wrote on X, referring to Monday’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia’s Demands to End the War

• Ukraine must cede occupied territory
• Abandon NATO aspiration
• Demilitarize; Denazify
• Address root causes
• Ukraine maintain neutrality
• Regime change

Ukraine’s Demands to End the War

• Durable ceasefire before territory talks
• Security guarantees
• Russia to pay for damages caused by war
• Return of children and POWS
• Trump to keep sanctions on Russia
• Mr. Zelensky has also said on Friday that he won’t give up any land, including Crimea.

Security Guarantees and a Russian Promise to Not Invade Ukraine or Another European Country

Witkoff told CNN that Putin had signed off on allowing “robust” security guarantees as part of an eventual peace accord, including a provision that would provide for a collective defense of Ukraine by the United States and Europe should Russia attempt another invasion.

“We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing,” Witkoff told Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” adding the Russians had also pledged “legislative enshrinement” of a promise not to invade Ukraine or another European country in any forthcoming peace plan.

Security guarantees are something I don’t want to see. Ukraine would be treated as if they were in NATO. We were only supposed to help them, not adopt them. It will be interesting to see how that polls.

Neither provision has been mentioned in Russian accounts of the summit.

A delegation of European leaders will join Zelensky in Washington, DC. According to CNN it is in a coordinated effort to support Kyiv and shape the future of Western support for Ukraine.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offered a guarded assessment of how close a peace agreement may be.

“We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remains some big areas of disagreement. So we’re still a long ways off,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement, we’re not at the edge of one, but I do think progress was made.”

Rubio told CBS on Sunday that “there’s no conditions that can be imposed on Ukraine… ultimately, it’s up to the Ukrainians” to decide on whether to accept an agreement with Russia.

However, it is clear that “after three and a half years, this war is getting worse. It’s not getting better… It’s going to get worse,” the secretary stated.

For the bloodshed to come to an end, both Ukraine and Russia “are going to have to give and both sides should expect to get something from this,” Rubio added. He acknowledged that “that’s a very difficult thing to do,” and that some may find the concessions required to be “distasteful.”

There are things Russia wants that it cannot get and there are things Ukraine wants that it’s not going to get,” he concluded.

Speaking to Fox News following Friday’s summit, Trump said he would advise Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to “make the deal” with Russia.

Appearing alongside Trump in Anchorage, Putin confirmed that Moscow was “sincerely interested in putting an end” to the fighting.

I don’t see the EU leaders, some of whom are extremely unpopular among their own people, agreeing to Ukraine making a deal. Zelensky takes his cues from them.

Zero Hedge included the X Posts of French economist Jacques Sapir on the Trump-Putin Summit since Sapir was somewhat prescient in the past:

President Trump could let Europe own it.