Where is Ukraine?

In fact, Americans should be interested in ensuring that Zelenskyy is visibly and necessarily involved at the initial stage of the peace process, because that guarantees relative effectiveness. Trump needs the effect of another “peace deal.”

Russia will run the expected campaign to present the Alaska summit as a “Yalta 2.0” about Ukraine without Ukraine. But it is unlikely to gain serious dividends from pushing this narrative.

"For Ukrainians, the degree of the President of Ukraine’s involvement in the global attempt to find peace is a marker for further assessing the significance of the head of state and for the legitimate perception of any possible agreements. This must be clearly understood."

If Trump limits himself to only an interim “synchronizing of watches” in Britain, where representatives of the U.S., Ukraine, and European countries met, that will not be enough to keep within the bounds of propriety. After all, the question of “how this all looks” if Ukraine is not an equal party in discussing the “Ukrainian–Russian issue” is far from trivial. 

The territorial question is the main one. It is obvious that this is precisely what Trump and Zelenskyy discussed by phone last Wednesday. The Witkoff–Putin peace plan likely assumes that the Russian Federation is ready to end the war if Ukraine agrees to cede Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk.

The crux lies in the word “cede.” I have written before, and will do so again: under no legal or political conditions will Ukraine recognize any occupied territory as Russian. That would be a political fiasco, direct criminal liability, and a violation of the Constitution.

And the idea of a possible referendum is simply a time bomb, although under certain circumstances it could become a convenient way to shift responsibility for a historic decision from the elite to the people as the sole subject of sovereign power.

If we are talking about “turning a blind eye” to the de facto occupation, that is already happening. Here it is important to watch the moves made by the authorities. If warming up the topic of compromise proceeds in the spirit of “let’s look realistically,” with territories to be returned by diplomatic methods, that is a signal for a painful dialogue.

Beyond that, there are two more regions—the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. There is information from the Americans that supposedly Putin agrees to renounce claims to them. In parallel, the thesis of a “territory swap” is being actively circulated. Some might interpret this as a desire to return them to Ukraine, but that seems doubtful.

Putin will be interested in maintaining control along the front line, effectively “suspending” these two occupied areas, turning them into a buffer zone. To relinquish them would create a military-strategic vulnerability for the Russian Federation in the future.

A “territory swap”—which territories? Ukraine does not currently control significant areas of the Russian Federation that would allow it to count on an equivalent return of the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. It is likely referring to Russia returning the parts of Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts it controls. There is also a natural opening for bargaining over the return of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, but Russia will try its utmost to retain control over it.

And then there is the question of Ukraine’s accession to NATO. It does not yet appear on the menu of peaceful settlement as a key item, and there were rumors, launched by Onet, that the package of peace proposals does not include a ban on Ukraine joining NATO. This has already sparked thoughts that, if Ukraine agrees to the Witkoff–Putin peace plan, it would receive security guarantees in the form of potential membership in the Alliance.

A threshold. That is exactly the moment Ukraine is approaching. Along with a serious internal conversation, the renewal of a broad political discussion, and the elite’s fear of making fateful historical decisions.

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About the author. Oleh Posternak, political technologist, political consultant, member of the Association of Professional Political Consultants of Ukraine.

The editorial board does not always share the views expressed by blog authors.