Donald Trump is committed to his maximum pressure strategy on Volodimir Zelenski to take effect on meetings that begin on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. The suspension of military aid, the abrupt cut in the exchange of intelligence and the constant criticisms … and public desales to the Ukrainian leader seek to force him to accept a high fire in increasingly demanding terms. With consolidated Russia in the territory occupied since its invasion in 2022, Trump intends to pave the path for negotiations to which kyiv arrives weakened and with less margin of maneuver.
The meeting between US emissaries and Ukraine has an agenda focused on two key objectives: reactivating the intelligence flow and closing an agreement that guarantees Washington access to the strategic minerals of Ukraine, a condition that Trump demands before reconsider the unlocking of aid. The US delegation, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, arrives in Saudi Arabia with a clear message: to press kyiv to accept a stop the fire with Russia, without committing to offer security guarantees in return.
The meeting occurs after the tense confrontation of February 28 at the White House, when Trump rebuked Zelenski for his position in the war and threw it from the White House abruptly without closing any agreement. Washington had demanded access to Ukrainian reserves of rare earths as a condition to maintain their support, and kyiv had shown willingness to negotiate. However, Ukraine rejects a high fire prior to any negotiation, since this would consolidate the positions of Vladimir Putin in the territories occupied from the invasion.
As President Trump himself said Sunday, the US is about to raise the suspension in the exchange of intelligence with kyiv as a kind of gesture of good will. “We want to do our best for Ukraine to take an agreement seriously,” Trump said on the Air Force One plane. “All I want is for Ukrainians to want peace,” he added.
High partial fire
The meetings in Yeda try to restore some stability in the relationships between Washington and kyiv after weeks of tensions that reached their critical point with the confrontation between Trump and Zelenski in the White House. According to sources close to the Ukrainian government cited by the AP agency, kyiv plans to propose a high partial fire limited to air and sea attacks, although the terms are not yet defined and need to bring postures.
Meanwhile, Russia takes advantage of the American intelligence blackout to intensify its offensive, launching a wave of drones and missiles about Ukrainian cities, with numerous victims. Trump, in a radio interview this weekend, justified the Russian escalation by pointing out that Putin “does what anyone would have done”, once again reinforcing his uncritical position towards the Russian president.
Last Friday, Trump hinted that he could impose new sanctions on Moscow, although he avoided committing. In the Kremlin, spokesman Dmitri Peskov described the conversations in Saudi Arabia as a “positive development”, but stressed that there are still nuances to solve and Russia believes that there is room to negotiate. Last month, US sent and Russia already gathered in the same country, excluding from the negotiations of both Ukraine and its European allies. Only then invited Trump to Zelenski to the White House.
After his confrontation with Trump in the Oval Office, Zelenski has faced a growing pressure from Washington. Trump has described it as «dictator»Both in speeches and social networks, claiming that he does not summon elections since 2019, while his vice president, JD Vance, has reiterated his position to abandon Ukraine and put an end to the conflict through the necessary concessions.
Certainly Trump’s strategy is to press Ukrainians, because Russians have already accepted their conditions, which are simply stopping and negotiating the assignment of what has already been invaded and a series of Ukrainian neutrality guarantees. Trump has distorted the facts by falsely holding Ukraine for starting the war, has undermined Zelenski’s legitimacy with his constant attacks, has tried to bend kyiv with the controversial agreement to exploit his minerals and has frozen both military aid and the exchange of intelligence, all of them huge blows for the Ukraine.
Trump waits, as he has said, to be able to travel on his own to Saudi Arabia in weeks to formalize the agreement and put an end to a conflict that promised to resolve in his first days in the White House, but that escapes him for the resistance of the Ukrainians to lose ground invaded.
The rupture between the US and Ukraine has turned on the alarms in Europe, where leaders have closed ranks around Zelenski while urging him to rebuild his deteriorated relationship with Trump. In Moscow, on the other hand, the reaction has been celebrated: senior Russian officials openly suggest that the Trump administration has aligned its position with that of the Kremlin.
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