Temper Tantrums by Zelensky and European Leaders Could Scuttle Trump’s Ukraine Peace Efforts Trump’s push for Ukraine peace talks angers Zelensky and European leaders, who resist compromises and fear U.S.-Russia negotiations. By Fred Fleitz
You would think that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be extremely grateful to President Trump for his extraordinary full-court press to end the war in Ukraine. You might also assume that America’s European allies would appreciate that America now has a president who is reasserting strong American leadership on the international stage to promote peace in the Ukraine/Russia War, the Middle East, and around the world.
Over the last two weeks, Trump began an aggressive diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine. He enlisted his National Security Adviser, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Treasury, Russia/Ukraine special envoy, Middle East special envoy, and other officials to engage with Ukrainian, European, and Russian officials on how to end the war. Trump spoke on the phone with Putin and Zelensky. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff arranged the release of American prisoners from Russia, which hopefully was a sign of good faith by Putin in joining future peace talks.
This week, Secretary of State Rubio, National Security Adviser Waltz, and Witkoff held four hours of meetings in Riyadh with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. This meeting was intended to repair U.S.-Russian relations after years of neglect by the Biden administration and start a conversation with Russian officials on how to reach a cease-fire and a peace agreement in the Ukraine War.
Instead of promoting and supporting Trump’s peace efforts, European leaders and Zelensky threw temper tantrums. They have opposed everything Trump has tried to do, asserted that Trump is siding with Putin against Ukraine, and claimed they are being excluded from U.S. peace efforts.
European leaders, Zelensky, and the mainstream press have harshly attacked President Trump and his national security team for appeasing Putin, claiming that the U.S. talking with Russian officials rewards Russia by ending its isolation. This argument doesn’t make sense because it obviously is impossible to negotiate an end to the war without dialogue with Russia.
The real issue here is that Zelensky and European officials want to stick to the fantasy policy on the war they pursued with the Biden administration. This included no compromises whatsoever to Russia. Russia must withdraw from all Ukrainian territory. They want Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine and Russian officials to be tried for war crimes.
Zelensky and European leaders don’t care that there is no way to compel Russia to agree to these terms. If Russia won’t agree to them, they are prepared to let the war continue.
President Trump disagrees. His priority is to stop the killing in Ukraine with an immediate cease-fire. He believes policies that allow the killing to continue in a war of attrition that Ukraine will eventually lose are immoral.
Trump knows that compromises and incentives will be necessary to end this war. Some of these incentives include working to normalize U.S. relations with Russia and even welcoming Russia back to the G8.
These and other possible offers to Putin have infuriated Trump’s critics and caused them to accuse the American president of appeasement and selling out Ukraine. This is false, and European and Ukrainian leaders have failed to provide their alternatives on how to bring Russia to the bargaining table.
One blatant lie that European and Ukrainian officials have been spreading about Trump’s peace efforts is that the U.S. is excluding them. Not so. Trump officials, including President Trump, have met with Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials multiple times. There have been many meetings between U.S. officials and their European counterparts on the war, including over a dozen meetings at last week’s Munich Security Conference. President Trump’s Russia/Ukraine Special Envoy, General Keith Kellogg, has held dozens of meetings with European and Ukrainian officials over the last few months.
Citing their false claims that they have been excluded from U.S. peace efforts, European states objected to President Trump’s recent phone call last week with President Putin. European and Ukrainian officials also protested that they were not part of the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh this week.
French President Macron was so angry that Europe would not be represented at the Riyadh talks that he convened an “emergency summit” in Paris to discuss Europe’s response to the U.S. peace efforts. This so-called emergency summit ended up being a low-key affair that looked like an informal lunch meeting.
Obviously, Ukrainian and European officials have not been excluded from America’s Ukraine peace efforts. The real reason why they do not want Trump officials meeting with or talking to the Russians without them is that they do not trust President Trump and disagree with his policy of prioritizing an end to the war. They prefer to stick to the failed Biden policy of arming Ukraine “for as long as it takes” with no plan to end this conflict.
Zelensky threw another temper tantrum this week over U.S. peace efforts when he said President Trump “sadly lives in this disinformation space.” This was a bizarre and unfortunate insult of Trump, who was already fed up with unfounded European and Ukrainian criticism of his peace efforts. Trump responded by attacking Zelensky’s leadership and calling him a “dictator without elections,” a reference to the fact that elections in Ukraine have been suspended due to martial law imposed due to the war and that Zelensky does not plan to hold an election until the conflict ends.
Trump also made a comment that Ukraine started the war and could have made a deal to stop it. Although Russia started the war, the president was referring to how the Biden administration and Zelensky unnecessarily provoked Putin in the second half of 2021 with constant talk of NATO membership for Ukraine and ignored obvious signs that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent. I believe that the U.S. could have convinced Putin not to invade Ukraine as late as mid-2022 if it had offered to put off the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine for an extended period, perhaps 25 years.
Despite European and Ukrainian criticism of President Trump’s peace efforts and temper tantrums, his peace efforts appear to be on track. Although the Riyadh talks indicated there is still a lot of work to do to get Russia to agree to a cease-fire and peace agreement, the talks reopened U.S.-Russia diplomacy and produced an outline to start peace talks. After the Riyadh talks, Secretary Rubio also reassured European and Ukrainian leaders that they would be included once peace talks with Russia begin.
President Trump has created a historic opportunity to end the war in Ukraine and restore European security. But for Trump’s Ukraine peace efforts to succeed, European and Ukrainian leaders must take a new approach to the war. If they continue their resistance to Trump’s peace efforts and nonstop criticism, they will lose this opportunity, the killing in Ukraine will continue, and Ukraine will eventually be defeated.
European and Ukrainian leaders also must recognize that the failed Biden approach to the Ukraine War is over and that the Republican Congress may halt military aid to Ukraine if it keeps resisting President Trump’s efforts to end the war.
At a 2023 CNN town hall, President Trump was crystal clear about his approach to the war in Ukraine when he said, “I want everyone to stop dying.” It is time for European and Ukrainian officials to take this approach and fully support President Trump’s peace efforts to end the Ukraine War.
Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member.
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