If US President Donald Trump manages to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiation table, then “we will exchange a territory for another,” Volodyr Zelensky said on Tuesday, February 11 on Tuesday, The Guardian. However, he said that he did not know which kyiv territory would ask in return. “I do not know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority,” he said.
The Ukrainian head of state specified in Guardian That he could exchange with Russian President Vladimir Putin the part of the Russian border region of Koursk, of which the Ukrainian army seized six months ago. Russia claims the annexation in Ukraine in 2014 in the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and in 2022 of four regions, those of Donetsk, Kherson, Lougansk and Zaporijia, although it does not have total control of it .
The Ukrainian president also considered that Europe alone could not guarantee the security of his country. “Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he said. He must meet on Friday the American vice-president JD Vance at the Munich security conference in Germany, in Germany, where the US special emissary on Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are also announced.
Negotiate “in a position of strength”
Donald Trump has undertaken to quickly end the “carnage” of the war in Ukraine, including putting pressure on kyiv, who received billions of dollars in military aid from Washington under his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. Volodymyr Zelensky has long rejected the idea of negotiations, saying that he wanted to beat Russia on the battlefield. But Ukraine is struggling against the Russian army, which is advancing in the east of its territory. In the columns of Guardianthe Ukrainian president says he is ready to negotiate, but specifies wanting to do so “in a position of strength”.
Volodymyr Zelensky also assures that the United States will have priority access to the strategic mining resources of its country. He had explained that he had presented this idea to Donald Trump in September, during their meeting in New York and that he intended to offer a more detailed plan “concerning opportunities for American companies, both in the Reconstruction of post-war Ukraine than in the extraction of Ukrainian natural resources “. Ukraine has some of the largest mineral reserves in Europe and it is “not in the interest of the United States” that these fall into the hands of Russia, underlined the Ukrainian president.
Ukraine “Russian one day”?
The day before, Donald Trump had mentioned in an interview the hypothesis that Ukraine becomes “Russian one day”, demanding in passing financial compensation for American aid provided to kyiv so far. “I want to recover” this money, said Donald Trump, adding that he asked kyiv the equivalent of $ 500 billion in minerals. He also said on Tuesday hoping that Russia’s liberation by an American sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug possession marks the “beginning of a relationship” to end the war in Ukraine.
Reacting to these declarations, the Kremlin praised this recognition of a “reality”. “The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia and has already become Russia is a reality,” said spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in reference to annexations of four Ukrainian regions claimed – but not entirely controlled – by Moscow in the fall of 2022.
kyiv fears any conflict settlement which would not include firm military commitments – such as membership in NATO or the deployment of peacekeeping troops -, believing that it would only allow the Kremlin to prepare its next attack . Russian President Vladimir Putin considers that talks can only take place if Ukraine lay down arms, sell the territories claimed by Moscow and renounce to join NATO. kyiv continues to reject these conditions, which would de facto rely a surrender.