Before meeting with Putin, Trump should recall his idea of complete ceasefire – diplomat

Diplomat, former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Advisor to the Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Andriy Veselovsky, expressed his opinion in a comment to Ukrinform.

“The first idea or slogan Trump used to start the negotiation process with Ukraine, Russia, and Europe was a complete and unconditional ceasefire. If we try to help Trump remember this and if this were the first and main thing he brought up in his talks with Putin, that would be the best option for us,” the diplomat said.

He added that according to international law, if one of the parties was under pressure when the agreement was concluded, then this agreement is not valid and can be terminated without any consequences.

“That is, if we had achieved a ceasefire, then talks between the two sides, Kyiv and Moscow, would have begun, neither of which would have been under pressure. And in this negotiation process, we would have had international law on our side, and we would not have lost hundreds of our people and our cities and villages every day. That is why we immediately expressed our support for Trump’s call for a complete ceasefire. If this position had been the first and firm, then we would have had an interesting and, perhaps, useful negotiation process ahead of us,” Veselovsky said.

Commenting on President Zelensky’s statement that Ukraine will not make territorial concessions to Russia during the discussion of a peace agreement but is ready for real decisions that will ensure a just and lasting peace, Veselovsky noted that “this is a correct and serious statement,” made loudly and supported by European countries.

At the same time, according to the diplomat, the most important thing for President Trump is what the American people, American voters, will say. If he manages to find an approach that appeals to voters, the U.S. President will stick to it, the former Ambassador predicted.

The second criterion for Trump is economic benefit: whether the U.S. and he personally will gain something from the agreements with Putin, such as joint development of mineral resources, and the third is the stance of the American and European political elite.

According to Veselovsky, four days before the announced meeting in Alaska, it is too early to predict its outcome, as the parties are still forming the stances they plan to voice during the negotiations. The problem is that they have completely different visions of this meeting, he noted.

Two aspects are important for Putin: one general and one specifically Ukrainian. The first, according to Veselovsky, is more significant. It is about presenting Russia during and after the talks as a state equal to the U.S., capable, like the United States, of persuading or even dictating its will to a significant part of the world with the help of allies and vassals.

“Putin wants to give Trump the impression that the situation of the 1960s and 1970s is repeating itself, when the world was divided into two camps: supporters of the U.S. and supporters of the USSR. The Kremlin’s task is primarily psychological: to convince Trump that the modern Russian Federation is a restored USSR that controls half of the globe and that it is in Trump’s interest to negotiate with it. Russia will try to make this the main topic of conversation, backing it up with arguments about its nuclear potential and “close friendship” with China. And it will probably only mention Ukraine in passing,” Veselovsky predicted.

According to Ukrinform, Donald Trump intends to meet with Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska.

President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that Putin wants to exchange a pause in the war for the legalization of the occupation of part of Ukraine’s territory.

According to NBC News, the White House is considering inviting the President of Ukraine to Alaska next Friday, August 15.

Photo: Anastasiia Diadiusha