"The Summit In Washington Has At Least Two Important Implications"
1- 19.08.2025, 14:30
- 4,800
Kiev has succeeded in changing the discourse.
A meeting between Vladimir Zelensky, Donald Trump and European leaders took place in Washington. The main topics of the talks were security guarantees for Ukraine, terms of a future peace agreement and a possible meeting between Zelensky and dictator Putin.
What is the assessment of the results of the talks in Ukraine? This is the question Charter97.org asked Ukrainian political scientist, professor of Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University Petr Oleshchuk:
- In Ukraine, the results are viewed quite calmly. Everyone understands that this is not the end of the story. And in general the situation, as practice proves, can change very quickly. I think that everything went quite well, if we take into account what preceded it all: the meeting in Alaska and Trump's subsequent statements about territories and so on.
This summit in Washington has at least two important consequences. First, it is a change in the vector of the agenda of the very negotiations from the issue of territory, which has been discussed for the last week at Putin's suggestion, to the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine.
By the way, the issue of security guarantees was even supported by Putin during the Alaska summit. He even mentioned it separately in his speech after the summit, which, of course, caused everyone's surprise. But, as far as I understand, Putin planned to reduce all this to another Budapest Memorandum. That is, some purely documentary assurances with the participation of not only, for example, Western countries, but also China, so that everything could be blocked in the future. A purely formal approach.
But Ukraine and European partners seized this opportunity and began to actively promote the thesis of security guarantees, in particular, in the context of the so-called coalitions of European partners, which have recently intensified their activities.
The question that security guarantees should include not only some documentary assurances, but also that all this should be supported by some more material grounds, in particular, the presence of foreign military contingents of NATO countries, and in particular, the presence of foreign military contingents of NATO countries. In this vein, we can recall the information published yesterday in the Financial Times about the draft of two agreements that the Ukrainians brought to Washington.
The first is about the purchase of almost 100 billion dollars worth of weapons (as part of these security guarantees), as well as about the joint development and financing by the United States of Ukrainian drones for 50 billion dollars.
Ukraine rushed to fill these very security guarantees with something concrete, and judging by the statements, the United States appeared quite open to it. Maria Zakharova has already said that for Russia, the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is unacceptable. Although yesterday, in fact, it was not announced yet, but only discussed the relevant insides in the press.
But, in fact, this whole situation looks ambiguous for Russia. That is, they sort of agreed to security guarantees, but if you agree only to some groundless paper guarantees, then there is a question about your real intentions. And the fact that now Russia will be forced to participate in this very discourse is not bad.
The second point is that Ukraine is promoting the thesis that there will be no preliminary discussion of territorial issues before the meeting of the presidents. Trump has sort of accepted this and said he is in the process of coordinating and working out such a meeting. But, characteristically, the US president said that he had already sort of agreed on everything, but after that Ushakov said that there would be no meeting for now, they could only consider raising the level of negotiating delegations.
Putin demands, "come on, give me some territories before we meet," which is completely unacceptable, and no one will go for that. Ukraine says that if there are any issues, let's agree on a meeting, which Putin is studiously avoiding at the moment. Thus, this discourse has been intercepted, changed and translated into a somewhat different, more favorable for Europe and Ukraine.
But this is just another stage. It is not excluded that tomorrow a new one will begin, and Putin will try to return to his manipulations, call Whitkoff to Moscow again, and so on. All of this could start a second round. We see that Ukraine, together with the Europeans, will try to consolidate all this not only at the level of any conversations and promises, but also at the level of, for example, the same contacts that would serve as a basis for a more substantial conversation in the future.
- The Financinal Times published a document containing Ukraine's proposals to Trump. They are at odds with what Putin is proposing. Kiev refuses territorial concessions and demands compensation from Russia. Will it come to a meeting between Zelensky and Putin, if the positions of the parties do not converge in any way?
- This question is now actively discussed in the media. Putin allegedly gave his agreement in principle. To be honest, I don't really believe that either, but I didn't really believe in the possibility of what happened in Alaska either.
It's not very obvious at the moment that Russia would actually agree to this. If they do, it will be, I think, an indicator that, to put it mildly, all their bravura statements about how great everything is and how they are ready to fight for another 100 years are not quite true.
- How can events develop in the near future?
- It all depends on whether there will be a meeting of the presidents. What will they offer as security guarantees? How will Russia react to it? So far, it has contradicted everything that the Russians have stated before. We Ukrainians are still at a bifurcation point. We have not yet emerged from it.
The events may develop in completely different directions, but it seems to me personally that, probably, some format for ending the war is not so far away.
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