The current Ukraine diplomacy is incoherent and unlikely to succeed, sadly. The only plausible alternative to dangerous appeasement is to dial up the pressure on Putin.
Peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, facilitated by a US administration that is openly seeking to profit from the endgame somehow, grind on incoherently amid persistent battlefield violence and growing unease among Ukraine’s European allies. Kyiv seeks binding international security guarantees and a ceasefire that maintains current frontlines, which it hints it might accept in practice (if not formally recognize), while Moscow is doubling down on demands. Putin has reiterated that the war would end only “once Ukrainian troops withdraw from the territories they occupy,” referring to lands recognized internationally (and in the 1990s by Russia) as Ukrainian. It’s none too promising.
The weekend’s Miami talks leading to more talks followed Geneva talks that significantly (and weirdly) altered an earlier 28-point framework largely written by Moscow after fake talks (which we compared on these pages to the 1938 Munich Agreement remembered as a disastrous capitulation to Hitler) — yielding a second 19-point framework somewhat palatable to Ukraine (but not to Russia). Meanwhile Russia launched nearly 1,400 attack drones, 1,100 guided aerial bombs, and 66 missiles last week alone. Ukraine has responded with long-range drone strikes on Russian oil facilities and Black Sea shipping. Again, unpromising.
Against this backdrop, I joined a debate on the I24 station with Fred Fleitz, a thinktanky Trump advocate, and Illia Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian journalist who staunchly defends his country’s staunch stand. Something interesting happened: We agreed on little that came before, but concluded anyway that more pressure on Russia would be needed: That Putin must feel the cost of his aggression at a level that threatens the regime, which like all vile dictatorships will fall one day.
I said the 28-point plan was a total non-starter — while the 19-point plan is a no-go with Putin even though that too contains painful concessions by Ukraine. “It reminds me a little bit of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict … one side’s maximum will give does not meet the other’s minimal demand.” Ponomarenko pressed the risk of appeasement: “Who told anybody that by disarming Ukraine … will not be used by Russia to resume war in an even better position?” He betrayed some paranoia there, and I answered: “Everyone said that. There’s no disputing it” — which is why the second plan no longer places limits on Ukraine’s armed forces.
I asked him, though, if he agrees with the notion that Ukraine will in the end have to cede some of Donbas, even if only in the context of a cease-fire as opposed to new recognized borders. Ponomarenko acknowledged the grim reality, saying that it pained him, as this was his home region, and he may never see it again. But then he again betrayed a sort of defeatism: “The problem is that on the Russian side, there are absolutely zero reasons to stop in their position and stop the war. Zero reasons, unfortunately.” I pushed back: “Maybe every soldier killed and every ruble lost constitutes a reason, and if it becomes painful enough, especially on the economic sanctions side, the reasons may accumulate.”
Host Ellie Hochenberg pointed out that all the plans are vague: “Demilitarized zones with no monitors, troops caps with no enforcement, overseen by who? The bits and bits of this mechanism of this deal are very, very vague, and I’m being generous.”
Fleitz asserted that Trump’s objective to stop the killing: “Trump’s objective is to replicate the success of his peace plan that ended the war in Gaza… The main objective of that plan was to get the living hostages out. What Trump wants to do in the war in Ukraine is to stop the killing with immediate ceasefire… He’s going to try to do some deal-making to get this happening. I think Zelensky understands now that he will have to agree to an imperfect, painful peace, but we’re not quite there on what he’ll agree to or getting Putin to negotiate.”
He has an interesting definition of “quite,” a generous reading of what is going on in Gaza, and an endearing belief that Trump is driven by some version of values.
I challenged Fleitz on Trump’s earlier positions, asking how he can defend Trump’s suggestions earlier in the year that Zelensky is a dictator (as opposed to Putin, who actually is) and that Ukraine started the war, and his willingness just days ago to back a plan that pretends Ukraine had some ingrained “Nazism” — a bullshit Russian narrative — and demanding Ukraine hold new elections in 100 days with no parallel demand of Russia.
Fleitz was having none of it: “Trump’s approach has always been to stop the killing. We didn’t see any effort by Biden whatsoever to do this.” He then — incredibly — began to accuse Biden of not supplying Ukraine with sufficient weapons before the war and in the early days, saying this encouraged the aggression. He may be right, but this, of course, is violently at odds with the isolationist MAGA desire to sell out Ukraine altogether, and basically back Putin. I asked what exactly he wanted Biden to do, and never quite got an answer.
But I found myself agreeing with at least his assessment of Putin. “Putin is a fanatic,” Fleitz said. “He will have to feel real pain until he negotiates in earnest.” Fleitz also insisted the Europeans refused to engage with Putin — when the reality is that French President Macron is widely mocked and criticized for overly engaging with Putin. “Fred, the pro-Trump crowd in America just loves to dump on the Europeans,” I replied. “Let me ask you, is it not conceivable that when the Europeans put forth a position that Putin is unlikely to accept, that is their version of negotiation, a little bit analogous to ridiculous Trumpisms like calling Zelensky a dictator?” At this point Fleitz seemed to reverse himself on arming Ukraine, and he claimed the Europeans “signed onto this ridiculous idea, let’s just dump weapons endlessly on Ukraine, and somehow the war will end. This was basically virtue signaling by the elite, the elite in Europe, the elite in the United States, and it made the situation in Ukraine much worse. Trump rejects that. I think Europe is with them now. I think Zelensky is with them now.”
I have been studying how to debate the Trumpy crowd for some years now. The clear conclusion is that there is no way to agree about the past, when others might have done some good that they feel must be erased from history. They must denigrate anything done by Biden, Obama and Europe, and challenging them on it cannot lead anywhere as they will never concede a point, on principle. This last aspect of the modus operandi, very obviously, comes from the top.
So I tried this: “I think we all have to agree that the Europeans and Americans did not provide Ukraine with all the weapons needed to win the war. You could still provide them with more cruise missiles, more long-range missiles, more F-16s, more Patriot batteries. Long-range drones. They’ve been denied all this. So I think to paint a picture as if you just threw weapons at Ukraine and the war went on and they failed to win it, I think is a little bit economical with the truth. Probably there will be a need to ratchet up the pressure on Putin economically. There’s no reason for Russian banks to not be completely thrown out of the Swift system, for measures against Turkey and China for trading with Russia … The cost of the war to him is prohibitive.”
And indeed we agreed, as long as Fleitz could emphasize the inadequacies of Europe: “Europe… could stop buying energy from Russia. It could put pressure on China and India to stop buying Russian energy… The convergence is clear: whether defending Ukraine or defending Trump’s approach, the bottom line is shared—Putin must be made to pay if there is to be any hope of ending the conflict.”
I let that go. Choose your battles. But if you want to know the real EU energy imports picture, it is here:
Either way, it seems broad consensus can be achieved on this: Ukraine must survive and be rewarded for being such a determined first line of defense against the revanchist Soviet nostalgia of a criminal regime, and that regime, embodied in the person of Putin, must not conclude that the war has netted positive. No invitation to G7-cum-G8, no general amnesty, no restored energy partnership.
