In his recent meetings in Brussels with European leaders and NATO Secretary Mark Rutte, President Voldymyr Zelensky reiterated the urgency of Western aid for Ukraine, i.e. guarantees for the present, and emphasized various elements , including the need to keep the anti-Russian front united between the United States and the European Union even after Donald Trump takes office in the White House. From the perspective of resolving the conflict, he underlined the importance of guarantees for the future, i.e. the next security model that will have to ensure lasting peace for the former Soviet republic. Compared to a couple of months ago, when between September and October, in Brussels, and before that in Washington, Zelensky presented the so-called victory plan, something has changed, starting precisely from the narrative.
Except for the propaganda notes and the accusations against Vladimir Putin of being a madman who likes to kill, it is clear that the approach has changed: the victory plan, already coldly welcomed by Joe Biden and Donald Trump and in Western chancelleries, is been literally declassified and now Kiev's declared objective is no longer a military success, which involves the reconquest of the territories occupied by Moscow since 2014, from Crimea to Donbass, but the end of the conflict according to a slogan repeated several times in recent months, that of just peace. Even for the European allies, beyond the ritual declarations on support for Ukraine, attention seems to have shifted from what was the common objective, the defeat of Russia, to the search for an “exit strategy” to be coordinated with the new president of the United States.
In recent months, Zelensky's communication tactics have been fluctuating, made up of openings and closures depending on the progress of the conflict, which however has developed in a negative way, essentially for two reasons: on the one hand the systematic insufficiency of Western aid, always under Kiev's requests to achieve the set objectives; on the other hand, the wrong military choices, such as that of the incursion into the Russian territory of Kursk, which if at the beginning raised hopes, later turned into a disaster for having weakened the front in Donbass, where the forces of Kremlin quickly took over. The current situation is difficult for Ukraine to sustain and is destined to worsen without further military support and without greater mobilisation, with the reduction of conscription even for eighteen-year-olds.
However, even the continued support on the line held up to now and the increase in forces in the field could hardly bring about a turning point and reverse the picture. Defense would be prolonged, but counterattack probably precluded. Probably therefore, in light of Trump's position, the most plausible scenario at the moment is precisely the one that involves the start of a dialogue between the White House and the Kremlin to define a broad framework for a sustainable agreement. From this point of view, the change in Kiev's substantial approach towards a possible end to the conflict can be explained, which occurred after the attempt to relaunch the victory plan, which was definitively scuppered after Trump's election in November. In any case, it remains to be seen what the US president's choices will really be, whether there will be room for an agreement, even if only in principle, which initially allows for a ceasefire, and what the Kremlin's line will be: the conditions set by Putin are known and the trading spaces are yet to be verified.
Zelensky essentially cannot do anything except wait for the first steps from Washington and Moscow, to which Kiev will have to adapt. The same goes for the EU, which in these three years of war has been driven by US decisions: the unity hoped for by the Ukrainian president clashes with the various European souls, including the most warlike and anti-Russian ones, from Great Britain to the Baltics and Poland, to those who instead favor mediation, Germany first and foremost. In Berlin, but also in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, the war in Ukraine has brought economic difficulties and political instability, creating imbalances that the prolongation of the conflict will only accentuate. The risk for Ukraine is that of being somehow forced into a downward compromise, in case a glimmer of hope really opens up for negotiations in 2025.
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