Volodymyr Zelensky's choices
To avoid a worse scenario than the current one, Zelensky will have to accept the deal proposed by Trump and sacrifice his political career.
Volodymyr Zelensky has no viable alternative but to accept Donald Trump’s unbalanced resource deal. With this deal, Volodymyr Zelensky would sacrifice his political career, his expected legacy in the eyes of Ukrainians, and part of his country’s economic sovereignty, but he would avoid a much worse scenario than if he rejected the deal.
Donald Trump warned over the weekend that Volodymyr Zelensky will be in “some trouble — big, big trouble” if he “tries to back out of the rare earths deal” amid reports that the latest version of the deal is deeply unbalanced. It reportedly requires Ukraine to contribute half of its revenue from all resource projects and related infrastructure to a U.S.-controlled investment fund, pay for all U.S. aid from 2022 onward through that fund, and give the U.S. first-bid rights on new projects and a veto on resource sales to others.
These tougher terms may be seen by Volodymyr Zelensky as punishment for choosing to pick an infamous fight with Donald Trump and DJ Vance at the White House in late February, but the entire package is being sold to Ukraine as a US “security guarantee.” The argument is that the United States will not let Russia threaten these projects, which also include pipelines and ports, prompting it, at a minimum, to resume 2023 levels of military intelligence aid and perhaps even escalate directly with Russia to get it to back off.
Ukraine already has Article 5-type guarantees from the United States and other major NATO countries under bilateral pacts it has reached with them over the past year, but this proposed arrangement gives the United States tangible stakes in deterring or immediately stopping hostilities. The trade-off, however, is that Ukraine must sacrifice some of its economic sovereignty, which is politically uncomfortable given that Volodymyr Zelensky has told his compatriots that they are fighting to preserve their full sovereignty.
If Volodymyr Zelensky agrees to Trump’s lopsided resource deal, then under the guise of any ceasefire, armistice or peace treaty it would be coupled with de facto global recognition of Russian control over the fifth of pre-2014 Ukrainian territory that Kiev still claims as its own, to create the perception of a joint asymmetric partition.
Not only could Volodymyr Zelensky’s political career end if Ukraine were forced to hold truly free and fair elections, but his predicted legacy in the eyes of Ukrainians as the foremost “freedom fighter” of this century would also be destroyed.
He has no viable alternative, since going behind Donald Trump’s back to reach a comparatively better deal with the British and/or Europeans would not result in the “security guarantees” he has convinced himself Ukraine needs to reach a deal with Russia. No one other than the US has any chance of standing up to Russia militarily, let alone the political will, and not to mention its investments in a war-torn third country whose resource wealth is supposedly questionable.
If Volodymyr Zelensky continues to stall, then Donald Trump could temporarily suspend military and intelligence aid to Ukraine as leverage, while adding even more punitive terms as revenge. The conflict with Russia would naturally continue as well, making it impossible for Ukraine to develop its resource industry and related infrastructure even if some other agreement were reached. The longer the conflict goes on, the more likely it is that Russia will destroy more of these same assets as well.
But if Volodymyr Zelensky accepts the latest deal on offer, then he would get the “security guarantees” he is seeking, making him more likely to accept a ceasefire and then possibly prompting Donald Trump to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin to follow suit, such as imposing harsh secondary sanctions on Russian oil customers. Volodymyr Zelensky would sacrifice his political career, his expected legacy in the eyes of Ukrainians, and some of his country’s economic sovereignty, but he would avoid a much worse scenario than if he rejected this deal.
*Andrew Korybko holds a master's degree in International Relations from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Book author Hybrid Wars: From Color Revolutions to Coups (popular expression). [https://amzn.to/46lAD1d]
Translation: Arthur Scavone.
* This is an opinion article, the responsibility of the author, and does not reflect the opinion of Brasil 247.