Bashed but not Beaten

"None of us want an endless war."

"Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts."

"[The meeting] did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future co-operation and communication to be constructive."

"Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees and I truly hope it will work effectively."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

President Trump meets with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office at the White House on Friday. Mstyslav Cherno/AP

The revelatory, undignified, undiplomatic and certainly threatening debacle of the televised meeting at the White House Oval Office with President Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump, surrounded by his key Cabinet members demonstrated the nature of this new administration. Power does not like to be taken for granted, nor does it appreciate that with power and influence comes a certain degree of restraint. Its expectations are geared more toward obsequiousness and this, the embattled and proud president of Ukraine failed to exhibit.

 

It is his country that is being unmercifully pummeled by an enemy dedicated to its ruination as a nation. Russia has made its territorial ambitions in carving up Ukraine known from 2014 forward when it annexed Crimea, then went on to claim possession of further oblasts, until it had secured one-fifth of the total geographic area of Ukraine. In the process destroying towns and villages, setting siege to cities, pulverizing civil infrastructure as it bombed hospitals, schools, shopping centres and energy stations in a scheme to demoralize the population.

 

President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 28, 2025.   Brian Snyder/Reuters

 

Tens of thousands of civilians and military dead, more tens of thousands maimed in never-ending attacks. Millions of people internally displaced and millions more refugees seeking haven in other countries for the duration of the conflict. A war that Ukraine never asked for, but Moscow delivered as an act of neighbourly concern over what Vladimir Putin said was a deliverance of the Ukrainian people from the neo-Nazi talons of Kyiv and its Jewish president.

 

Following that disorderly, disrespectful, dismal meeting gone off the tracks leading to the Trump administration putting a halt to any further weapons transfers to Ukraine as well as funding for its war effort, Ukraine's president has had time to assess the impact upon his country's war fortunes caused by its president's leap to the defense of his country and in the process attempting to correct the mistaken impressions of the U.S. administration of exactly who it was that began the war and who it is that stands to profit from it.

 

"We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence," he wrote. BBC

In an effort to placate the irascible Mr. Trump, Mr. Zelenskyy signalled that Ukraine is now prepared to sign a U.S.-lucrative agreement handing over Ukraine's natural resource-richness in rare earth minerals. The agreement hiccoughed formerly on Mr. Zelenskyy's insistence that security assurances accompany the agreement. Initial stages of a peace deal, he suggested, could involve the release of prisoners of war along with an aerial and sea truce, banning missiles, long-range drones and attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure -- war crimes that they are.

 

Ukraine was obviously catapulted into an apprehensive alarm over the looming prospect of a pause in U.S. military aid to Ukraine in its battle with Russia. Officials in Kyiv are falling all over themselves to effusively state their profound appreciation for vital American support in the war. Their eagerness to work in tandem with the U.S. cannot be underrated. Even so, President Zelenskyy will not relent on his insistence that any such agreement be accompanied by security guarantees.

 

And nor is he and his country prepare to recognize Russian occupation of Ukrainian land. The concern between Ukraine and its allies is President Trump's eagerness to push for a ceasefire that favours Russia, the country that cannot be trusted to honour truces. According to a White House official the United States was in the process of "pausing and reviewing" its aid to "ensure that it is contributing to a solution". Until Mr. Trump is satisfied that Ukraine demonstrates a commitment to peace negotiations the non-delivery of further aid remains in effect, he explained.

 

"We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky – ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure – and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same," he wrote.  BBC