A two -way summit and then a trilateral to close the agreement. Donald Trump, in the aftermath of the summit in the White House, outlines the next steps for the end of the war in Ukraine. A coveted goal that, despite the burst of meetings of the last few hours, however, it is still elusive. The knots to be dissolved are many, from the security guarantees for Kiev still vague to the positions rather than distant between the two enemies, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the Kremlin opened to a meeting. It would have been Zar himself who proposed it, saying to Trump that he would have preferred to see the Ukrainian leader “alone” and indicating Moscow as a location.
However, Zelensky refused: he said he was available for a summit in any bilateral or trilateral format, but he dryly rejected the idea of a summit in the Russian capital. One of the hypotheses on the pitch, supported by the Elysée and by Rome (as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani explained) is that of Geneva. While the White House for the possible trilateral summit with the participation of Trump would be focusing on Budapest, the capital of the most pro-Putin EU country. The Secret Service – explain well -informed sources – would already be preparing for the summit in Victor Orban‘s Hungary.
On the date, however, the great maneuvers continue: it is not excluded that the historic meeting between the leaders of Moscow and Kiev can take place by the end of August, therefore in about fifteen days. A temporal frame that, in light of the few concrete progress obtained so far, could favor Russia, whose advanced in Ukraine continuous inexorable.
To press for an acceleration of the negotiation is Trump, intended to close the game as soon as possible. “We leave” that they meet first: they are the ones who have to make the decisions, said the Tycoon, indirectly alluding to the exchange of territories. At the White House with the European leaders there was no mention of it. But to try to sensitize Trump, Zelesnky in the oval study presented him detailed maps, to show him how to give in the regions that Moscow claims it means to leave the door open to next attacks: to give Putin the rest of the Donetsk region as asked for by the Kremlin – the message to Trump – it would be as if the USA sold the eastern part of Florida. A comparison that did not leave the American president indifferent. So much so that in the Trump territories in the last few hours he sent Putin to be “realistic”: “I hope he is good, otherwise the situation will be hard”.
“Both parties must make concessions,” insisted the secretary of state Marco Rubio, to whom the president has given a leading role in defining the security guarantees for Kiev together with the European Championships. Trump therefore opened to the possibility of providing aid also in terms of air defense. But he categorically excluded the sending of US soldiers to Ukraine (“You have my word”), unlike some European capitals such as London, Paris and Berlin.
Ukraine for its part presses for the deployment of western troops and for a mandatory agreement that goes beyond the financial help and the supply of weapons that has been a pillar of the support granted so far. Kiev does not want to sign an agreement similar to that of Budapest of 1994, when he handed over nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for security guarantees by Moscow, Washington and London. The agreement did not enter the detail of the guarantees and this deficiency, according to Kiev, opened the way to the invasion of Russia. It all began – according to Trump – with the sale of Crimea to Putin by Barack Obama: “The worst real estate agreement I have ever seen”.
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