Ray Furlong
A whirlwind week that has seen two emergency summits in Europe and worried comments from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlines the gnawing fear in capitals from Kyiv to London.
Namely, that Washington and Moscow could try to make their own deal on the future of Ukraine without Kyiv and U.S. allies in Europe.
U.S. President Donald Trump has added to the angst with his post on Truth Social, accusing Zelenskyy of being a dictator and saying “we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia.”
U.S. officials have denied they wish to exclude anyone from the process. But U.S. suggestions that Europe would not be at the negotiating table has caused widespread alarm, and the positive vibes from U.S.-Russia meeting in Riyadh on February 18 also set nerves on edge.
At this stage, there are two key questions: would Washington and Moscow even be able to agree on a mutually acceptable settlement to end the war in Ukraine, and if they did, what could anyone else do about it?
The White House clearly wants peace. It’s not clear that Moscow does. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kyiv on February 19 just hours after overnight Russian strikes pounded Ukraine. Some 250,000 people were left without power in subzero temperatures in the port city of Odesa.
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