Trump could be the end of Zelensky’s war effort, regime, and political career

How do you do damage control when you have already done so much damage? That is the conundrum Western and Ukrainian leaders are currently facing. 

Since the triumphal comeback of former president and now president-elect Donald Trump in the US, it is very likely that he will follow through on his campaign promise to quickly end the proxy war in and through Ukraine.

That is good news, especially for a lot of Ukrainians – and Russians, too – who will, if things work out, not die in a war that could have been avoided in its entirety and has already been decided in Russia’s favor. For Western and Ukrainian leaders, things may feel a little more complicated: As Moscow is winning on the battlefield, to end the war at this stage will require major Ukrainian and Western concessions, going substantially beyond the deal that was on offer in the spring of 2022 but that the West made Kiev reject: Now, Ukraine will lose more territory – beyond Crimea, that is – and its toxic NATO “perspective,” too.

Russia has been consistently clear about its position: Neither Ukraine nor the West can expect peace “on the cheap.” Instead, a settlement will have to reflect their failure and Moscow’s success. There is nothing – as war goes – exceptional in that: If the West – currently wallowing in vulgar Russophobia – had managed to gain the upper hand, neither Russia nor its current government nor its leader could have expected anything but merciless punishment and humiliation. Indeed, it is likely that Moscow will, in the end, be more flexible and rational than the West would have been.

That Moscow, however, is certainly not in the mood to behave as if it had lost the war was the message that Germany’s lame-duck chancellor Olaf Scholz received when calling Russian president Vladimir Putin: Putin did not give an inch, reiterating Russia’s position on who is to blame for the conflict (NATO and its overreach, which is largely correct) and that Russia has always been open to negotiations (also correct). Finally, he reminded his caller that any “possible agreements” must take into account Russian national security interests and “rest on the new territorial realities, and, most importantly, eliminate the original causes of the conflict.” In translation: territorial losses and full neutrality and absolutely no NATO for Ukraine (not officially, not a little, not on the sly: This is a case of “nyet” means “nyet,” as granite as the Neva embankments in Putin’s native St. Petersburg).

That is a summary of the minimum Moscow will demand, and if that minimum – and quite possibly more, such as an end to sanctions and a general, more far-reaching reset of the security architecture in Europe – is not met, then there won’t be peace, and Ukraine and the West will lose later and even worse. Russia is also unwilling to let the incoming US administration get away with setting itself up as an innocent peacemaker. Rather, Moscow expects that Trump’s Washington will correct “the criminal mistakes” of the current Biden administration, to quote the spokeswoman of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova. In other words: No more free rides; and no easy showboating either.

It is true that, in the West, not everyone’s grief management is at the stage of acceptance yet. Some, for instance former NATO figurehead and current Ukraine booster Anders Fogh Rasmussen are still in denial, hoping that Trump will display his vaunted unpredictability, do exactly the opposite of what he has said repeatedly, and get even deeper into the Ukraine quagmire. In The Economist, Dmitry Kuleba, formerly Ukraine’s anti-diplomat-in-chief, offers a heady mix of copium, combining the usual stereotyping “history” fantasies (“Vladimir III”?) with an attempt to scare off Trump by arguing that he cannot “throw Ukraine under the bus.” Good luck with that approach! Trump’s answer to a dare from a former Ukrainian foreign minister well known for his habit of cajoling Westerners much more pliable than Trump may well be “watch me!” That is all the more likely as Trump seems to tilt toward those American hawks who see Ukraine as a burden to be shed before getting even more aggressive toward China.

Yet Kuleba is an outlier. As the Wall Street Journal notes, Trump’s policy of seeking peace is “finding growing acceptance among Ukraine’s European allies.” They, we learn, now “increasingly worry that time isn’t on Ukraine’s side in the war.” What can one even say anymore? Maybe: “Good morning! Time has never been on Ukraine’s side. Neither has demography. Or location. Or military-industrial-complex capacity (yes, even while supplied by the West). At this speed you will catch up with all of reality in a decade or so.”

Make no mistake, in EU-NATO Europe, the new sobriety is spreading beyond the circles of traditional skeptics. It is true that Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban and his foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, have become only more outspoken in their opposition to the proxy war and its suicidal economic effects, calling on other parties of the European right to follow their example. But that is merely the tip of the iceberg. The fact that Germany’s Scholz has called Putin, after years of – futilely – trying to “isolate” the Russian president was, in and of itself, a great climbdown and clear sign that the mainstream center is beginning to get the message: the proxy war is lost, and it is very high time to look for a way out.

That is the true meaning of Scholz’s humiliating and richly deserved cave-in, and Ukraine’s president Vladimir Zelensky did not miss it. That is why he was irate, disparaging Scholz’s initiative as opening the “Pandora’s Box.” One Pandora’s Box that Zelensky does not have in mind but that his EU “colleagues” are certain to be worried about the most is that their prestige and careers as well have been staked on this proxy war.

The ripple effects of Trump’s return are already unmistakable all across the West and in Ukraine as well, even now, before the president-elect has even made any clear suggestions about how exactly he is planning to get peace done. What has been leaked, in any case, is detached from reality: No, Moscow has not fought this war to agree to any Western troops in some sort of 800-mile buffer zone in a Ukraine pumped up with even more Western weapons or to have the NATO nonsense merely postponed. Trump advisers allegedly selling such schemes to their boss will learn how Russians say “fuggedaboutit”; they’ll hear it a lot.

The same, incidentally, holds true for the more aggressive ideas of Trump’s designated national security adviser Mike Waltz. Waltz is generally seen as fitting in with Trump’s strategy of seeking a compromise on Ukraine. But he has also made harebrained statements about how easy it would be to economically coerce Russia, which – with embarrassing ignorance – he has disparaged as “essentially a gas station with nukes.” Either Waltz will quickly catch up on Russian realities, or, if he should stick to such arrogant delusions, he, too, will get to hear “fuggedaboutit” and nothing else in Moscow, while Russia will take more of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zelensky has made intriguing statements in a long recent radio interview clearly meant as a major public address: He acknowledged that the war will end faster under the incoming president. He also admitted that Ukraine’s ongoing (but not really) formation of fresh brigades is proceeding “very, very slowly”; he complained that, in reality, less than half of the weapons promised by the US have actually been delivered; and he signaled understanding for Ukrainian soldiers who retreat under intense Russian pressure and without any relief from those brigades that fail to get ready. His government’s position, he also told his listeners, is that people come first, territory second.

Clearly, Zelensky made this statement in specific context, desperately trying to put a positive – as it were, generous – spin on having to admit that Ukrainian troops are giving way on the battlefield. After all, those whose lives were wasted in hopeless meatgrinder defenses, such as the battles of Bakhmut or Avdeevka, are no longer around to be astonished at the rift between their experience and their president’s word. Those recently sent into the predictably senseless Kursk Kamikaze incursion are also getting fewer by the day. And yet, if one were to generalize from this narrow, dishonest context to Ukraine’s overall situation, putting saving Ukrainian lives over retaining devastated square kilometers would, obviously, be a whole, new – and for Zelensky’s rigid mind – sensational notion.

And there may be good reasons to generalize: Officially, Kiev still clings to the absurd idea of regaining its 1991 borders. But, in reality, now there are multiplying signs that the Ukrainian leadership is getting ready to trade territory for an end to the fighting. According to the New York Times, “two senior officials” – one named, one anonymous – have recently said that “defending Ukraine’s interests in potential talks would hinge not on territorial boundaries, which are likely to be determined by the fighting, but on what assurances are in place to make a cease-fire hold.” While the “territorial question is extremely important, but it’s still the second question […], the first question is security guarantees.”

Zelensky is now angling for a meeting with Trump. That, once it happens, will be an opportunity for him to sell his vague ideas about making peace, while staying “strong” – as expressed in that radio interview as well – to the great dealmaker himself. The problem with that approach is that Trump, obsessed with strength, can sense weakness, too. And, frankly, it takes no special skill to detect it in Kiev’s position. Zelensky, in his interview, claimed that the Europeans have helped Ukraine no less than the US. Clearly, he was trying to imply that the EU alone could, if need be, take over supporting Ukraine all alone. Trump would certainly not mind if the Europeans ruined themselves even more. After all, while the goal of handing Russia a crippling defeat has not been achieved, that of thoroughly subduing the Europeans, including by impoverishing them, has. Trump’s Washington will be no less ruthless than Biden’s in taking advantage of the perverse submissiveness of Europe’s elites. But, in terms of actually being able to withstand Russia, the idea of the EU going it alone is as unrealistic as Zelensky adviser Mikhail Podoliak’s scheme to offer Ukrainians as outsourced legionnaires to replace US troops in NATO-Europe.

One complication is all too often overlooked in Western commentary: Zelensky is not merely – or mostly? – struggling to keep Ukraine’s war effort afloat. He is also fighting for his own political (at least) survival. In general, the leaders of used-up proxies face many threats because, in essence, they lose their usefulness for their backers and may even inconvenience them, while, at home, the populations that they have sold out to other countries’ geopolitics may demand a reckoning.

In this context, we see rumors and leaks – to The Economist, no less – that an old nemesis of Zelensky, General Valery Zaluzhny (currently in de facto exile as a perfectly misplaced ambassador in London) might join a power struggle against the backdrop of Ukraine’s “ebbing morale.” In particular, there is speculation and, it seems, even some surreptitious activity, about presidential elections. If they were to be held next year – finally, after Zelensky’s constitutionally dubious overstaying in office – “internal polling seen by The Economist” (so many layers of intrigue here!) suggests Zelensky would lose. And why would Trump mind? He is on record blaming the start of the war on the Ukrainian leader. That’s a tad unfair, given how much the US and its EU-NATO vassals have done to make this catastrophe happen, but then, no one has ever been fair in this mess.

Even if Trump should not end up making Boris Epshteyn, who thoroughly scares Ukraine, his special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, things are looking bleak for Kiev’s ruling regime. The incoming US president is not merely about to catalyze the end of the war. He may end up bringing about the collapse of Zelensky’s catastrophic career in politics or even the Zelensky regime as a particular version of proxy war-based quasi-authoritarianism. And once this war is over, Europe’s elites as well will be left in the ruins of their own hubris and shortsightedness. The enormous damage that has already been done is irreversible and will reverberate for decades.