Over the past several days, US officials, including President Donald Trump, US Secretary State of Defense Pete Hegseth, US Special Peace Envoy Keith Kellogg and more made a sway of statements. Some expected. Some contentious. Some contentiously expected. And some none of that.
Hegseth travelled to Brussels to attend the Ukraine contact group where he voiced the hard truths that Kyiv, despite official goals and rhetoric, has known for years: the US doesn’t support Ukraine’s NATO membership.
Nor should it expect to return all of its territories, fully restoring its territorial integrity.
This sparked an outrage among many who believe that these are premature concessions to Putin, with whom President Donald Trump held talks before calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy to inform him of the call.
Hegseth denied these to be concessions and later changed the tone at his press conference, saying that nothing is off the table and it’s up to Trump to ultimately decide what’s necessary, a statement later echoed by Vice-President J.D. Vance.
Already at the Munich Conference, Kellogg, falsely rumored to have been sidelined from the negotiation process, met with Zelenskyy’s right hand Andriy Yermak, with the latter describing the outcome of the meeting as positive.
“We discussed continuing support for Ukraine. This is a security issue not only for our country, but for all of Europe and the world. Helping Ukraine now is much cheaper than confronting a stronger Russia later,” he said, adding that Kellogg is slated to visit Ukraine soon.
Enter Vance who made a statement before the Munich Security Conference, saying that the US may deploy its troops to Ukraine to ensure Ukraine’s “sovereign independence” (though later he clarified that the WSJ twisted his words and that the US will not deploy troops as it is a war between Ukraine and Russia).
His appearance turned out to be unorthodox, and he anticipated the reaction to it already at the beginning, saying “I hope this is not the last round of applause I get.” Why he made that statement became clear several minutes into the speech that was an extensive criticism of Europe’s modus operandi – from how it handles free speech to how it accepts unvetted immigrants.
And he was right: only several rounds of modest applause followed.
He did not discuss wars or external threats as much as expected only briefly mentioning the war in Ukraine at the beginning, saying that a reasonable deal will likely be reached.
“But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine – and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence – the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America,” he said.
Vance then proceeded to criticize the Romanian judge’s decision to annul the presidential elections, making it clear that Russia’s reported interference with the TikTok algorithm that helped Caitlin Georgescu win in the first round of presidential elections is no excuse to cancel voting results.
“I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said, adding sarcastically toward the end of the speech that “if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”
“I know what was signed in Munich”
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greatly engaged with the Republican Senators, including ardent supporter of Ukraine Lindsey Graham who praised Ukraine for being the “ally we’ve been waiting for” and noting that no American soldier died in the Russo-Ukraine war.
“If the rare minerals deal is signed, Putin is screwed,” Graham said, claiming that Trump would defend the deal.
In turn, Zelenskyy responded to whether any deals would be signed today, saying “we can’t sign anything in Munich. We know which things were signed here. I’m not repeating these mistakes.”
“I don’t want to be the person in history who helped Putin occupy territory,” he added, warning against any ceasefire that would help Russia to rearm and come back stronger while publicly acknowledging that neither Biden nor Trump ever wanted Ukraine to be in NATO despite the endless promises and pledges.
Zelenskyy also made it clear that he will meet with Putin only once Ukraine’s deal has been agreed on with Trump and Europeans, reminding everyone of gospel: that Putin is a liar and must not be trusted.
Final in this series was Zelenskyy’s meeting with Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that he described as “good.”
“I am grateful to him and his entire team for the discussion, which also included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Representative General Keith Kellogg. Our teams will continue to work on the document. We have addressed many key issues and look forward to General Kellogg in Ukraine for further meetings and a deeper assessment of the situation on the ground,” he wrote on Telegram.
The meeting was postponed as the US needed more time to go through the memorandum on cooperation between the US and Ukraine, first proposed to Ukraine by US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent during his visit to Kyiv. According to the Washington Post, this deal was rejected initially by Zelenskyy as it did not appear to have substantive security guarantees in exchange for 50% of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
At the time of writing, the deal has yet to be signed.
At lightning speed
It is evident that Trump’s team is committed to attaining its goals as fast as possible. Some speculate that it’s because he’s eyeing the Nobel Peace Prize. Others because he solely wants to focus on the domestic agenda and the Pacific region.
Regardless, he’s determined. The question now is what the outcome will look like.
Putin is already forming a negotiation team that will reportedly consist of big wigs, including 77-year-old Yuri Ushakov, a 50-year plus diplomat who was Russia’s ambassador to the US from 1998 to 2008, and who has acted as a foreign policy advisor to Putin since 2012, and was involved in the 2022 talks. As well as director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin and Kyiv-born Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
Putin has already made it clear that his goals remain intact and he’s eyeing Ukraine’s full capitulation, which suggests that even the current proposals like the deployment of peacekeepers to Ukraine is against Russia’s interests, let alone Ukraine’s EU membership track or the enlargement of its army.
Vance and others have made it clear that Trump will use leverage if necessary to force Russia to negotiate – be it sanctions or “military tools of leverage.” Likewise, both he and Rubio emphasised several times that the US wishes to resolve the war for good so that it doesn’t break out in 2-3 years.
While it’s a much-welcome development, no one is able to understand how exactly that’s attainable given that Russia’s military budget is enormous in the years to come, just like its ambitions.
