The ball is in Zelensky's court but he is in an impossible position
Ukraine has clung to this industrial heartland ever since fighting erupted there in 2014, when pro-Russian separatists first began to clash with Ukrainian troops and declared Donetsk and Luhansk self-styled independent 'people's republics'.
Central to President Putin's war aims, after the full-scale invasion of 2022 the war in Donbas escalated into a huge battle of attrition, costing hundreds of thousands of casualties on either side, reducing settlements to rubble and swathes of land into territory reminiscent of the mud-churned battlefields of the First World War.
Battles for Donbas cities such as Bakhmut became graveyards of Ukraine's regular and volunteer units as troops died attempting to stem human wave Russian assaults.
Yet now, despite holding on to 22 per cent of Donbas — about 6,600 sq km of land — Ukraine may be expected to surrender its most fortified defence lines after Putin demanded that it hand over this remaining territory, including strategic heights and fortified cities, as a condition to ending the war.
It is not a condition that President Zelensky is expected to be willing or able to accept. Politically and militarily, the Ukrainian president would be unable to cede the Donbas territory to Russia, even if he wished to, without leaving Ukraine in a more precarious position than the one in which it now exists.
Even if Russia were allowed a long-term de facto control of territory it already occupies in Ukraine, Ukraine's constitution poses a complex challenge to any potential surrender of unconquered territory — or the formal de jure recognition of Russian control over land so far seized by Putin's troops.
The constitution expressly prohibits the president from unilaterally authorising any territorial changes, stipulating that Ukraine's territory is integral and inviolable; that the protection of Ukraine's sovereignty is the most important function of the state; and that any changes in territory can only be decided by a national referendum called by the country's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.
Zelensky — who set the tone of his war leadership when he said 'the fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride' in 2022 while refusing a US offer of evacuation — has stated repeatedly that he would not agree to territorial concessions.
'The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,' he said nine days ago in a video address, following the first remarks by President Trump that land swaps may form the basis of a peace deal. 'No one will deviate from this, and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier.'
Zelensky's meeting in Washington, where he will be accompanied by the main European leaders, Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general, and Sir Keir Starmer, comes after Trump told allies that Putin wanted Ukraine's Donbas as a condition to ending the war.
• Matthew Syed: We have failed Ukraine in every way, even with the words we use
In what could mark a fulcrum point in the course of the conflict, Monday's meeting will also be the first time Zelensky and Trump have met since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. It comes after the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska on Friday, where Trump suddenly abandoned his demand for a ceasefire in favour of a peace settlement that appears to hinge Putin's demand for the unconquered Ukrainian territory of Donbas.
So far it remains unclear whether the proposals by Putin are part of an opening gambit marking a starting point for negotiations, or a final non-negotiable offer. Either way, the suggestion of giving up unconquered Ukrainian-majority territory, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians still live, to Russia, appears an impossible demand.
'Giving Donbas to Russia is legally, politically and strategically out of the question; and in addition it would cause serious division in our society,' noted Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of Ukraine's foreign affairs committee and member of Zelensky's Servant of the People Party. 'Our constitution forbids any division of Ukrainian sovereign territory.'
Putin's offer to freeze the front lines elsewhere in return for all of Donbas apparently ruled out the possibility of a ceasefire until a comprehensive deal is reached. A ceasefire had been one of Zelensky's key demands, at a time when Ukraine is being struck daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles, and Ukrainian troops are in slow retreat along key areas of the battlefield.
According to sources with knowledge of the Russian offer who spoke to Reuters, under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which both comprise Donbas — in return for a Russian commitment to halt attacks in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In addition, Russia would give up tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine near Kharkiv and Sumy totalling around 440 square km, in return for Ukraine handing up the 6,600 square kilometres it still holds in Donbas.
The same sources also reported that Putin was also seeking formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Militarily, even though Ukraine's battlefield fortunes are in slow decline, surrendering Kyiv's remaining territory in Donbas to Putin would involve ceding key heights and the fortified cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, allowing Russia an easy axis of advance into other areas of Ukraine if hostilities recommenced.
'The ground our forces still hold in Donbas is a bastion, well fortified, and a gateway to other areas of Ukraine, which could be used as an easy springboard by the Russians in any further attack,' added Merezhko. 'This land is not merely symbolic. It is strategically vital.'
Economically, though Ukraine has already lost a number of key mines in Donbas, further loss of territory would also prove crippling.
Until it ceased production seven months ago due to fighting directly above it, the coke mine outside the Donbas city of Pokrovsk was the country's only source of coking coal, essential for the steel industry.
• Mark Urban: On the front line, Russia's warfare is more cunning than ever
At the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine's steel production plummeted by 70 per cent to 6.3 million tons. According to industry analysts, if the Pokrovsk mine is completely lost the country's steel production would drop to 2-3 million tons: a fraction of its glory days.
With so much to lose, and amid such a febrile political environment, as their president goes to face Trump in Washington, few Ukrainians have found reassurance in what followed the Alaska summit, with briefings alluding to security guarantees for Ukraine in the style of Nato's all-for-one 'Article 5' outside the Nato alliance.
'Do we really expect nuclear armed western nations to respond aggressively against Russia in the case of further attacks upon Ukraine, if we are not actually a member of Nato?' concluded Merezhko. 'We don't think so.
'We just hope that the European leaders can keep Trump focussed on the key issues when he sees Zelensky in Washington,' he concluded. 'Without European pressure Trump seems to wander off towards Russia, like a line in that song by Frank Sinatra, 'my fickle friend the summer wind'.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
WILLIAM BROWDER: Like any gangster, Vladimir's primary instinct is for survival. That's why he won't end this war until he can claim victory
More than a million Russians have been killed or seriously wounded on the battlefields of Ukraine. But there is one man who owes his life to the continuing slaughter. For Vladimir Putin, an outbreak of peace means certain death – by assassination, overthrow and execution, or in an international prison cell as a war criminal. The Russian president's only credible hope of survival in the gangster state he has himself created is to prolong the 'special military operation' in Ukraine or to win in such outrageously successful terms that he can turn his attention to other former client states, other victims. Survival, after all, was Putin's objective in launching the invasion in 2022. In his interminable ramblings about history, the Russian president makes great pretence that all of Ukraine – not just the eastern regions of Donbas, Donetsk and Crimea – is part of Russia 's empire. Putin claims that it is his mission to reunite former territories while denying Kyiv the chance to join the Nato alliance with the West. From the point of view of Russian interests, these might seem to make sense as a rationale for the war. But if rationales can change, Putin's true, cynical motives cannot. His strategy for clinging to power – and thus to life – comes directly from Niccolo Machiavelli, the calculating philosopher who wrote the handbook for dictators. War, he taught, is the one essential lever of power. And the psychopathic Putin can use this lever particularly effectively because he is willing to sacrifice millions of lives in his own interests – those of Russians, Ukrainians, Europeans and even Americans if necessary. Europe is fortunate that Ukraine has proven such a dogged and courageous adversary. If the Ukrainians had not fought so ferociously against an enemy who outnumbers them many times over, Putin would have turned his war machine on another target – quite probably Poland. War is the reason he has remained Russia's ruler for more than 25 years. If he had not been able to create distractions, he would have been booted out of office long ago. Standards of living have been slowly eroded, to the point that many people are worse off than they were even under the Soviet government. Russia's economy has stalled, inflation has soared to 10 per cent and even the country's much-touted energy revenues are in decline. Corruption is too weak a word to describe the wholesale plundering that replaced Communist bureaucracy. Russia is the ultimate mafia state and Putin is its godfather. I have good reason to know. There has been a price on my head since 2005, when I was denied entry to Russia and put on a wanted list in a naked bid by Putin to take control of my asset management firm and steal $230 million of taxes my business had paid to the Russian government. Four years later, my lawyer and close friend Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death in a Russian isolation cell for exposing this vast fraud. Murder by the state has become so common in Russia that the death of any prominent figure is widely assumed to be an assassination – typically by car bomb, poisoning or falling from a high window. Putin is paranoid about his personal safety – and with good cause. As instability rumbles, he will be all-too aware of the threats that loom from anti-government activists, foreign 'enemies' and even power-hungry officials inside his own tent. One way or another, it is very likely that when he leaves the Kremlin, it will be in a coffin. Like any gangster, Putin's primary instinct is for survival. After that comes money. When he flew to Alaska for the so-called peace talks last Friday, he had two real objectives: to avoid financial penalties; and re-establish himself as a respected international power-broker. In both of these aims, he succeeded. In truth, Donald Trump had already been outmanoeuvred before the US presidential jets touched down in Anchorage. He had boxed himself into a corner by repeatedly boasting before last year's elections that he was going to end the war in 24 hours. When that proved impossible, Trump issued a series of ultimatums, with much tub-thumping about tariffs, sanctions and taxes if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire. Each of those deadlines passed without consequences. Trump had already lost much of his leverage when he ceased sending military aid to Ukraine. And when Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was bullied in front of the cameras at the White House in February, Putin knew he had carte blanche to continue waging war indefinitely. But this did not guarantee that the Kremlin delegation could safely thumb their noses at the Trump administration on American soil. The US President does have the power, after all, to cripple Russia's economy if he chooses. This cannot be done by direct measures. But, indirectly, Trump can wield financial doomsday weapons. By threatening China, India and Brazil with sky-high tariffs, he can make it impossible for Moscow's major trading partners to keep doing business with Russian companies. And, with no one to buy his oil and gas or send him weapons, Putin would swiftly be finished. Friday's so-called summit, then, was an opportunity for the Kremlin to ensure the disaster didn't happen. So, Putin gave Trump everything he needed – starting with praise. The war would never have happened, he said, if Trump had been President in 2022. Every gangster needs a fall-guy, and former president Joe Biden fits that bill. Next, Putin offered empty pledges that his goal was peace. The only obstacle, he said, was Ukraine's war-mongering government. This has been his disingenuous position from the outset: if the Ukrainians would simply accept they have no right to independence, Russia could rule their country without any need for violence. Finally, and behind the scenes, he will have ensured Trump is fully rewarded. We don't know what private deals might have been done under the table in regard, for example, to Ukraine's mineral wealth. But we do know that Trump is a man who regards other countries as 'real estate', waiting to be exploited. We also know he accepted a luxury Boeing 747 worth an estimated $400 million – complete with gold-coloured walls and furnishings – from the Qatari royal family when he signed up to a business partnership with them. Whether Putin has found ways to outdo this, we do not know. But however it was managed, Russia has avoided those Armageddon tariffs. Yet that was only half of Putin's agenda in Alaska. He was also intent on demonstrating his legitimacy as a world leader. He could have been arrested as a war criminal the moment his plane landed. Right now, he should be where his crimes deserve – wearing an orange jumpsuit, shackled in a cage in Guantanamo Bay. But there was never the slightest risk of that. Instead, he has flaunted his power, reminding the world that he is 'untouchable', however illusory – in reality – that might be. For Russia is a laden juggernaut, labouring up a steep hill that never ends. The driver dares not take his foot off the accelerator, because he will stall fatally – and be dragged out of the driving seat. Putin has to keep going, ignoring the screams from the engine, mowing down anyone in his path. And he will.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Times letters: Alaska summit leaves Trump and Europe exposed
Sir, The Alaska summit (news, Aug 16) led to no ceasefire, no peace and no justice. It was stagecraft masquerading as statecraft. Yet it also laid bare the collapse of American leadership. The United States has allowed President Putin to move from pariah to partner, providing a blow to the foundational principle of the postwar order: that wars of aggression bring isolation, not legitimacy. By entertaining Russia's territorial demands, America has dangerously shifted the boundaries of what is acceptable. The core rule that borders must not be changed by force has been abandoned. President Trump now stands exposed. His threats are never followed by action. He talks tough but always blinks, and rhetoric without resolve deters no one. Putin left Anchorage unpunished, with sanctions once again only threatened. Meanwhile, President Zelensky has been undermined by the ally that once pledged solidarity. If the US will not bear the burden of leadership, Europe must rediscover its resolve. Ukraine must not be abandoned to tyranny. Richard A Edwards Senior lecturer in law, University of Exeter
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Zelenskyy faces daunting trip to the White House – but this time he will not be alone
Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make his second visit to the White House on Monday with the daunting task of reversing the damage done to Ukraine's security prospects by Friday's Trump-Putin summit in Alaska. Zelenskyy will not, however, be alone as he was on his first trip to the White House in February when he was ambushed and humiliated by Donald Trump and the vice-president, JD Vance, who sought to bully him into capitulation to Moscow's demands. This time the Ukrainian leader comes to Washington flanked by a dream team of European leaders, including Britain's Keir Starmer, Germany's Friedrich Merz and France's Emmanuel Macron, who combine economic and military clout with proven rapport with Trump. Their mission will be to use their individual and combined influence to coax the president out of the pro-Russian positions he adopted after just a couple of hours under Putin's sway in the sub-Arctic on Friday. To do that, they will have to project a more convincing sense of resolve and common purpose than they have managed hitherto, argued Ben Rhodes, a former adviser to Barack Obama. 'My advice would be to not capitulate to Trump,' Rhodes said. 'He has grown all too accustomed to people he perceives as weaker bending to his will, which is something that Putin does not do … Zelenskyy cannot be expected to do this alone, as that's what got him into that last mess in the Oval Office. Zelenskyy needs Europe. And the Europeans need to show a strength to stand up to Trump which they have not really shown yet.' Macron and Merz will accompany Zelenskyy on Monday as embodiments of the two pillars of Europe, the French-German axis that is at the core of the EU. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, will be a reminder of Europe's combined importance as an economic juggernaut. Trump struck a EU-US trade deal with her just three weeks ago in Scotland, and hailed the relationship as 'the biggest trading partnership in the world'. Brett Bruen, a former White House director of global engagement, said the European leaders should focus on economics and use the White House meeting 'as a chance to remind Trump how small Russia's economy is vis-a-vis the EU and the UK and other western partners'. Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, will be a useful bridge: a European far-rightwinger who Trump counts as a friend but who also supports Ukrainian sovereignty. The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, represents a small European state but he is on Team Zelenskyy because he managed to establish an unexpectedly warm relationship with Trump. The Finn cultivated his access to the president by hastily polishing up his rusty golfing skills for an impromptu trip to Florida in March for a round with Trump, on the recommendation of the Republican senator Lindsey Graham. Stubb used the occasion to offer the perspective of Russia's closest European neighbour, urging Trump not to trust Vladimir Putin. Starmer combines national clout and personal rapport in some measure. Trump has gone out of his way to emphasise their good relations, despite Starmer's 'liberal' outlook, and the president arguably has an incentive not to sour relations ahead of a state visit to the UK next month, an extravaganza in which Trump sets high store. Mark Rutte also brings the influence of high office, as Nato secretary general, with a proven track record of corralling Trump with honeyed words, at one point appointing him the 'daddy' among world leaders, helping avoid any disastrous outbursts at the Nato summit in June. 'A lot of people have learned the lessons of Trump, in terms of how you handle him,' said Kim Darroch, who was the UK ambassador to Washington in Trump's first term. 'There will be a lot of flattery. It's tiresome but it's necessary: it gets you to first base. You tell him how well he's doing, how glad everyone is that he is leading the west to find a solution to the war. But then you get on to the substance.' The fact that all these leaders have cleared their diaries to fly to Washington at short notice is a measure of how alarmed they were by Friday's Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage. The Russian president, wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes after his unprovoked full invasion of Ukraine, was feted with a red carpet and a personal round of applause from Trump, who allowed him to speak first after the truncated abortive meeting and abruptly dropped his previous insistence on a ceasefire. Instead, the US president uncritically accepted Putin's preference to move straight to a comprehensive peace deal, putting the onus on Ukraine to make territorial concessions. One diplomatic observer likened the prospect of Monday's White House showdown to a football team coming out for a second half trailing 0-3 but with a raft of super-substitutes on the field. The first challenge will be staying together and sticking to the same talking points. 'Put up a united front and speak from one set of points,' advised Ivo Daalder, a former US ambassador to Nato. 'The goal is to get Trump to agree and side with them. But the message must be that their position is real, won't change, and if Trump doesn't agree they will pursue their path on their own.' 'Trump won't have the patience to listen to the same pitch a dozen times,' Darroch said. 'So for the initial round they probably need to select a couple of European speakers alongside Zelenskyy: perhaps Rutte as secretary general of Nato and Macron as the senior European national leader. 'My advice to Starmer would be to wait and see how the conversation goes,' Darroch added. 'If it goes badly off-track, or gets a bit spiky, he can intervene to pull it back on course, or calm it down, or just try to build some bridges. Because the risk is that if Trump thinks that the whole exercise is basically about telling him he's got it wrong, he could react badly or just close the discussion down.' On the way into the White House, Zelenskyy and his European backers can steel themselves with knowledge that not all is lost. The worst fear was that Trump would strike a deal with Putin in Alaska that would be presented as a fait accompli to Kyiv. That did not happen. Furthermore, they have potential allies inside the Trump administration. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, is a traditional Republican whose instincts towards Russia are hawkish, although he has a record of going along with the flow of the president's impulses. On Sunday, Rubio gave the arriving delegation some hope, insisting to NBC that a ceasefire is 'not off the table' and confirming that the US is interested in contributing to western security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, acknowledging 'it's one of their fundamental demands is that if this war were to end, they have to make sure this never happens again'. The arrival of so many European luminaries in Washington is a sign of panic, in part, but also of united resolve. Arguably the only way the delegation could be strengthened would be with the inclusion of a Norwegian. Last week, Trump is reported to have cold-called the Norwegian foreign minister (and former Nato secretary general) Jens Stoltenberg, catching him by surprise on his mobile while he was out on the street. The president is said to have pressed Stoltenberg on his obsession with winning a Nobel peace prize, an award decided by a Norwegian parliamentary-appointed committee. One of the cards Trump's visitors will have in their hands on Monday is a reminder that cosying up to Putin is unlikely to get him the Nobel he craves. 'Second-term Trump has his eye on his place in the history books,' Darroch said. 'This is a point which needs to be put across delicately, but history will be kind to him if he delivers a fair peace in Ukraine; less so if he presses for a capitulation.'
