Ukraine, EU pushes Zelensky: “Russia must not win”

Ukraine will do “whatever it takes” to become “strong” in the coming year and, then, to be “ready” for diplomacy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Brussels has set the course for exiting the war with Russia.

Kiev does not intend to negotiate now, while it is in a position of weakness, but it is still counting on the help of the West to try to turn the tide of the conflict. EU leaders, with different accents, support him. “Russia must not prevail”they proclaim in the conclusions of the European Council, which express the line of the 27.

In short, for Europeans this is not the time to talk about peacekeeping or security guarantees: it is “too early”, as Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof underlined. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also urged us not to rush too far with hypotheses. In Ukraine, he said “in the meantime Let’s try to reach a ceasefire and peace. The peacekeeping process is a hypothetical period: we will see what happens.”

The Trump unknown

Zelensky is worried about the USA, with Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House. Zelensky did not hide the fact that for Kiev Europe alone is not enough: “For Ukraine, European guarantees will not be enough – he said – for us the real guarantees, now and in the future, are in NATO”. The president does not despair of being able to convince the tycoon: “I think Trump is a strong man and I want him on my side,” he said. For Zelensky, “common decisions are needed: the United States and the EU. Or rather, Europe, because the United Kingdom also serves, of course. We are counting on it. And – he underlined – we are still waiting for the prime minister”, Keir Starmer, who on Wednesday evening he was not present at the meeting in the residence of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

The role of Europe

The Ukrainian president has the EU behind him, where the Eastern front line prevails.”Any push to negotiate early is a bad deal for Ukraine,” said High Representative Kaja Kallaswho is Estonian but speaks for all 27. President Ursula von der Leyen is on the same wavelength: “Supporting Ukraine at this moment – she stated – is not only a moral obligation. It is also a strategic imperative. The world is watching us. Our friends, and even more so our enemies, will be watching carefully how we maintain our support for Ukraine. It must be ironclad.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is more cautious, as he prepares for the next elections in Germany and who last night attended the dinner at Rutte’s residence, together with the ‘heavyweights’ of the European side of NATO: there were Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Polish President Andrzej Duda, President of the European Council António Costa, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

Regarding the war in Ukraine, the Social Democratic leader underlined, “we must not lose sight of the two great tasks we face. First, the killing must stop: we must arrive at a situation where peace becomes possible. It must also be very clear that there must not be an escalation of the war into a war between Russia and NATO”. Scholz, however, specified that nothing must be decided “over the heads of the Ukrainians” and called on other leaders to intensify military support for Kiev.

Different accents came from the Baltics. These days, noted the President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, “I hear about possible peace negotiations. My opinion is that it is too early, because right now Russia is in offensive mode. Russia is moving forward. the strongest party in any possible negotiation”, which therefore “would not lead to a just and sustainable peace, but to an unjust and unsustainable peace”. lasting is to put Ukraine in a position of strength. It means Ukraine needs assistance, money, weapons, air defense – everything we can provide.”

Zelensky did not deny that the topic of a possible peacekeeping mission be discussedbut said “there are no decisions” onpossible sending of troops to Ukraine with peacekeeping functions. “I cannot discuss the details publicly,” but “there is some political will,” as well as the “understanding that Vladimir Putin is dangerous and that he will not stop at Ukraine.” He then criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin who, he said, “is very dangerous, for everyone. For him, human life is worth nothing. I think he is crazy, really. He loves to kill.”

Putin’s speech

Putin, from Moscow, reiterated that for him Zelensky, having expired his mandate, has no legitimacy: “We will talk to anyone, including Zelensky, if he were to go to the polls and gain legitimacy”, he said. The Ukrainian president reiterated that he does not aim for a ceasefire shortly. “We must understand – he said – that we cannot live with a frozen conflict in our territory”. And he rejected the proposal for a ‘Christmas truce’ put forward by the prime minister Hungarian Viktor Orban: “With all due respect to the Hungarian people – he said – the prime minister does not have a personal mandate to organize the negotiations, and his relations with Putin are a little too cordial”.

Ukrainian demand for air defense systems

Zelensky knows that sitting at the table with the Russians in a position of military weakness can be very risky: he could end up like the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk, in early 1918, who had to deal with Imperial Germany with their army routed. Whenever they objected to a German request, the Reichswehr attacked. It ended with huge territorial cessions of the newly formed USSR to Germany.

Faced with the prospect of having to lower the age of conscription, to have soldiers, he pointed out that for him the problem is more the lack of weapons, not so much the men, despite the fact that on the eastern border of the EU, according to Frontex data, they have increased the arrivals of young men fleeing the war are high. He therefore asked the Europeans to at least provide him 19 new air defense systemsto protect the “nuclear power generation. Over 22 stations are involved in the generation, we need 19 additional” air defense “systems to protect the grid, otherwise we will be left without 4-5 gigawatts of energy next winter, like Russia you know well.”

And he thanked David Lammy, British Foreign Minister, and Giorgia Meloni for the new aid packages they promised him. In short, for the EU and for Zelensky, the war must continue, in the hope of reversing its fortunes. The front, as Rutte noted, is moving west, not east. It’s all about whether Donald Trump agrees with this strategy. And even if the Europeans manage to avoid being bypassed in decisions about the future of Ukraine.