The face adapted to the situation. Volodymyr Zelenskyj seemed contrite when he appeared on Caren Miosga's ARD talk show last night. He was no longer the wartime president who was confident of victory, but a man whose desire to fight seemed strained.
In a flashback, Miosga shows how Donald Trump recalled his conversation with Zelenskyj on Fox News, the conversation between two presidents, in which the American clearly told the Ukrainian: “Stop now. “You have to come to an agreement.”
To this day, Zelensky does not dare to criticize the American who, as an opposition politician, has just cut off his military aid. “America's passivity,” he says weakly, “would be a bad sign.”
Time is running out
He meekly calls Olaf Scholz, who is currently also denied a weapons system, a strong leader. Zelensky is no longer the strong man he never was. Due to his dependence on Western military aid, he has lost important parts of his national sovereignty. He only heads a Ukrainian state that was amputated on its eastern flank by the Russian aggressor without anesthesia.
The whole world is waiting for Zelensky and Putin to meet at the negotiating table. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had already described exactly the three phases of the endgame on June 12, 2022 in Naantali, Finland, in the so-called “Kultaranta Talks”:
Phase 1: Arm Ukraine, no longer with the goal of winning, but with the goal of strengthening its negotiating position: “The question is what position the Ukrainians will take when negotiating a solution. Our job is to make this position as strong as possible. “We know that there is a very close connection between what can be achieved at the negotiating table and the position on the battlefield.”
Phase 2: The official start of peace talks: “The question is: What price are you willing to pay for peace? How much territory? How much independence? How much sovereignty?”
Phase 3: The time for concessions has begun, including those of territory. “The question is: what price are you willing to pay for peace? How much territory? How much independence? How much sovereignty?”
Time is running out. The frozen conflict, in which neither side has made significant territorial gains for a long time, is struggling to resolve. Zelenskyj in particular is running out of time.
Five factors should motivate you: not to give up, but to cooperate.
America's number one support has an expiration date.
Not only a possible electoral victory of Donald Trump, but the hot phase of the election campaign does not mean anything good for Ukraine. The mood in America has changed. Joe Biden is no longer in control of the process, but rather the hard line of the Republicans around the future presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
For weeks, Senate negotiators have been trying to secure $60 billion in new funding for Ukraine through a bipartisan deal. In exchange, Republicans called for stricter measures on the southern border with Mexico. But it is precisely this compromise that Donald Trump and Mike Johnson – Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives – are now blocking, and Biden has to watch.
#2 The European defense industry cannot supply Ukraine with enough ammunition.
The European defense industry does not believe in long-term support for Ukraine and is therefore unwilling to raise its ammunition production to a new level. Who will pay for this expansion of industrial capacity? ask the politicians. The response you get is a great silence.
The result: Ukraine is almost out of ammunition. According to the Ukrainian army, the rate of fire in several locations had to be reduced by 90 percent compared to the summer.
#3 Chancellor Scholz and his Defense Minister protect themselves and have defined a line of demarcation.
There will be no “boots on the ground” and no German participation in the war, Pistorius assured again in the current interview with Bild war reporter Paul Ronzheimer.
He made it clear that, despite all the solidarity, the actions of the Bundeswehr must not continue to be looted. He said: “We have already gone overboard with what we have achieved. But at some point that has a limit because otherwise we have no systems to defend ourselves in an emergency.”
The background to these statements is that Pistorius and Scholz would risk a security breach in the defense of the Federal Republic if they complied with everything that was demanded in kyiv. This would open a period of time for Germany during which the Federal Republic would be “unprotected,” according to Pistorius.
#4 Europe is clearly not prepared to fill the void left by the United States.
According to the latest data from IfW Kiel's Ukraine support tracker, Germany is the largest supporter of Ukrainians in terms of arms deliveries after the United States (46 billion), with 18 billion dollars. But the gap with the United States is too large to compensate for a possible loss of American support alone.
Christian Mölling, deputy director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and director of the Center for Security and Defense, also blames Europe: “It is clear that if the Europeans do not jump into the abyss, no one else will jump over the abyss. gap. Then the investment we have made until now would also be lost.”
#5 NATO itself has no interest in further escalation.
Stoltenberg had already explained this at the “Kultaranta Talks” in Finland in June 2022 and has maintained it since then.
“They asked for a no-fly zone, we said no. We should start by creating a humanitarian corridor. We said no. There have been discussions about NATO strengthening a naval corridor to transport food. We said no again. It is not easy because it involves costs for Ukrainians. But the reason we don't invade Ukraine with NATO troops is because we want to avoid escalation.”
Conclusion: Coupled with notable war weariness in Ukraine itself, there are strong reasons for Zelensky to move toward the still completely unoccupied negotiating room. Even if there is no Putin waiting for him there, he must open peace diplomacy, before it is too late. An offer to speak is overdue. Not war, but peace, Immanuel Kant once said, the “masterpiece of reason.”
Surf Tip: ZDF talks to Söder – In the Lanz system, simulated attacks are part of the happy ending strategy