The Washington Post
Ukraine's president, a political novice, faces major test in first direct talks with Putin
By
David Stern
[Long a question of mine has to do with where American media reporters are stationed who report on Ukraine. What news organizations have permanent offices in Kyiv? If you watch closely you will see or read reports by reporters based somewhere else – Budapest, Moscow, etc. In this case these two are supposedly reporting from Kyiv, but the bi-line is Moscow. Is the editor in Moscow? Just how knowledgeable is he or she? So much reporting on Ukraine lacks real context and understanding. Haven’t American news organizations noticed – Ukraine is pretty central to a lot of important matters. I think Ukraine merits more than drive-by reporting. Just saying. RAM
]
Dec. 6, 2019 at 12:07 p.m. EST
MOSCOW — When Ukraine’s boyish-faced TV-comedian-turned-president meets Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the first time Monday, the issue at hand will be about trying to end a war.
But perhaps the bigger question is about setting the tone: whether Ukraine’s relatively untested President Volodymyr Zelensky is capable of standing up to Russia’s formidable and calculating leader.
The Paris meeting aims to find a path to end the war in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have carved off a slice of the country in a conflict that, since 2014, has cost more than 13,000 lives. [
A clarification is in order – maybe a couple. First, while it is true there are Russian-backed separatists, the fact is the war was started by Russia in Crimea and then Donbas. Russian regulars are involved and military command is almost all Russian. Buying into the “separatist” narrative is simply and sloppily accepting the Kremlin narrative. Second, “the meeting aims to find a path to end the war.” That might be nice but Putin has no interest in ending his war – none. He will conduct his war through any negotiation until a white flag is waved. Putin’s interests do not include ending the war. Zelenskyy and everyone else should understand that. RAM
]
A political novice who played the president in a TV sitcom before winning office in April, Zelensky is desperate to end the war — his main election promise — and recover eastern Ukraine. [
Zelenskyy had better not be “desperate.” The best outcome from this meeting for Zelenskyy, Ukraine and the world is for Zelenskyy to leave having agreed to nothing and announcing that he has met Putin, sees him for what he is – a committed threat to Ukraine and world stability, it is time other leaders understand that fact and join Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression with all means at their disposal. RAM]
But he goes into the meeting weakened by President Trump’s suspicions of Ukraine. The
U.S. impeachment hearings
investigated Trump’s temporary freeze on military support for an ally that is a crucial counterweight to Russian power, in return for a political favor. [
Absolutely true, at a time the United States should be making it crystal clear Ukraine and Zelenskyy have committed and determined American support Washington has done nothing to signal such support. Indeed, while Zelenskyy is in Paris facing the thug Putin and a couple of Europeans wanting to pretend Putin isn’t so bad and business with Russia should be able to get back to normal, Putin’s puppet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be visiting Washington. Are you kidding ? Who orchestrated the timing of this trip? Unless Lavrov is going to be told in no uncertain terms to go home and tell the little KGB colonel he is to get out of Crimea and Donbas before expecting anything from the United States the optics are terrible. RAM
]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are mediators in the negotiations — the first meeting of the contact group since 2016 to try to thaw the frozen conflict and revive the stalled cease-fire and peace process signed in 2014 and 2015. [
Not sure the people being killed, their families, and the children trying to avoid Russian land mines think of Russia’s war as a “frozen conflict.” RAM
]
No big peace breakthrough is expected, but there is optimism that there could be some positive steps. [
I can see no – no – positive steps for Ukraine unless Zelenskyy leaves the meeting with the announcement I set out above. It has seemed every American president has come into office thinking they are different than their predecessors and will be able to strike a balance accommodation with Putin. And European “leaders” they seem to have it in their DNA to want to play nice-nice with Putin regardless of what he is doing. Zelenskyy should set himself apart but identifying Putin for what he is and saying so. RAM
] Zelensky adviser Andriy Yermak spelled out Ukraine’s demands for a new cease-fire and prisoner exchange in a speech at Chatham House in London on Thursday and
threatened
that without peace the country would “build a wall” and “live with it.” He did not offer details. [
Ukraine – stand tall and tough. RAM
]
Zelensky trusts no one, going into the talks, he told Time magazine and European publications in a recent interview: not Putin and not the European leaders. [
Until someone proves they are worthy of trust that is exactly how he should operate. RAM]
He swept to power on a wave of popular discontent with the political establishment, only to become immediately snarled in the United States’ impeachment drama after Trump, in a July 25 phone call, leaned on him to “do us a favor though” and dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The phone call — and the arm-twisting by the world’s superpower — did not place Zelensky in a particularly positive light. He tried to ingratiate himself with Trump by complaining that France and Germany were not doing enough to support Ukraine. In fact, Europe has contributed significantly more to Ukraine than has the United States, 18 billion euros (about $20 billion) since 2015, Elmar Brok, special adviser to the European Commission president, told the Interfax Ukraine news agency in October.
The United States has committed $1.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014,
according
to Defense News. [
There is much more to that comparison, but the issue here is the Normandy meeting and Zelenskyy standing up to Putin. Sliding back to “the phone call” leads only to the sloppy mess taking place in Washington where Ukraine is but an innocent victim. RAM
]
Since his election, Zelensky has adopted a Trump-like media strategy, bypassing regular channels for the most part, posting YouTube monologues on his channel Ze!President while striding on a treadmill or driving in his car. A Ukrainian Everyman, he dresses casually, rarely wearing a tie and sometimes seen unshaven.
But is Everyman who you want sitting in highly complex peace negotiations across the table from a leader like Putin, with his deep knowledge of the technical and military nuances of the conflict? [
Obviously a question but how have the experienced European leaders done in facing Putin? Let us pray Zelenskyy is up to the challenge. RAM
]
Putin’s long-term strategic goal is to have Ukraine in Russia’s backyard, rather than see it turn to the West in pursuit of a more open and accountable democratic model and an end to decades of crippling corruption.
[A little clarification – Ukraine is Russia’s geographic neighbor. Putin wants to dominate Ukraine so that he can reconstitute a Russian empire. And, of course, march on from there. RAM
]
Zelensky’s opponents fear that his relative inexperience could lead him to cede too much to Putin. [
He should concede nothing! RAM
]
Before he became an actor playing the president in a sitcom, he
once
said he was willing to go down on his knees to beg Putin to avoid military action against Ukraine. (It was March 1, 2014, days after Russia moved to annex Crimea by sending forces in military uniforms without insignia to seize government buildings and raise Russian flags.)
Questions about his negotiating skills were planted in a carefully worded statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry — after Kyiv and Moscow swapped prisoners in early September — that praised Zelensky’s “reasonable approach and willingness to compromise.” Zelensky’s critics immediately took it as evidence that he had given too much away. [
And, let us recognize just how cleverly and constantly the Kremlin uses its propaganda narrative. RAM
]
Nationalist rallies in Kyiv protested what they saw as Zelensky’s “capitulation” after he endorsed a document, called the Steinmeier Formula, in October that lays down a timetable for peace, including elections leading to a special self-governing status for eastern regions and Ukraine regaining control of its Russian border.
It is opposed by nationalists and veterans in Ukraine, seen as legitimizing the separatists and giving Putin what he wants. Zelensky later said “there will be no capitulation” and no voting until all armed units withdraw and Ukraine has control of the border. Those issues are likely to be stumbling blocks in the Monday talks in Paris.
[“Stumbling blocks” – just saying that suggests Zelenskyy defending Ukraine’s sovereignty is a problem. Hey, Russian invading Ukraine is the problem. The United States and the United Kingdom not living up to their assurances to Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum is the problem. Zelenskyy defending Ukraine’s sovereignty is his job! RAM]
Victoria Voytsitska, a pro-reform analyst and former lawmaker, said there were bitter pills Ukrainians would not swallow, such as amnesty for separatist fighters. She was concerned that Zelensky would not stand firm against Putin in negotiating conditions for elections in the east.
She saw Zelensky’s most important task as ensuring that European leaders did not weaken sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, despite the cost to their economies, and demonstrating that Russia was in the wrong.
“I think it’s a great platform to communicate to both European leaders and to Putin the Ukrainian case clearly and publicly. .
.
. Here’s what we’ve done, here’s what we’ve achieved,” she said in an interview in Kyiv. “Ukraine has done so much. And it’s not us. It’s about war, and there’s a clear enemy who’s sitting at the same table. It’s Russia, that is basically feeding the war every day. And it has to stop.”
Pro-Europe Ukrainian journalist
Vitaliy Portnikov
predicted that if Zelensky failed to cede ground to Putin, Moscow would simply intensify pressure on Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian president has a really very bad choice — between surrender and war,” he
argued
in an article published on the liberal website Grani.ru, which is critical of the Kremlin and blocked in Russia. [
And Russian pressure should be countered by American and Western pressure – immediately! Had all the sanctions suggested by the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) in April 2014 been applied immediately I believe there would have been a good change Donbas would never have happened. Some of them were
dribbled out 3-4 months later – not the way they could be genuinely impactful. RAM
]
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda met Zelensky last month in the capital, Vilnius, and said Ukraine should not make harmful concessions to Russia “in holding talks with a fairly strong negotiating partner.”
He added: “We don’t want you to make concessions that could harm you.”
Zelensky’s advantage going into talks with Putin, analysts say, is that he offers a new start and a change from his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, whose relations with Russia were poisonous.
Konstantin Gaaze, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Zelensky needed to establish a working relationship with Putin to resolve the conflict. He said Putin might respect Zelensky more than Poroshenko but noted the new Ukrainian leader’s vulnerability as a result of the impeachment drama. [
Zelenskyy doesn’t need to establish a working relationship – he needs to establish respect, and concern in Putin. RAM
]
“He understands that his cards are better than Zelensky’s,” Gaaze said. “It makes the situation all about the personal relationship and how they sit together. I think Putin expects that when the door closes, Zelensky will be pragmatic.”
On Friday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed “very cautious and a very moderate optimism” over an improvement in relations between Moscow and Kyiv.
But despite the more positive atmosphere between the leaders, Zelensky’s hands are tied by opposition in Ukraine to any concessions, according to analysts.
“He has little to give to Putin, otherwise he risks destabilizing domestic politics,” analyst Tim Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said. He said in an email that Putin seemed to want to convey willingness to seem reasonable, without giving up much. [
Zelenskyy has little to give Putin!!! He shouldn’t give anything. Hey, Putin is the one who started and is conducting the war! What is he going to do – when is he going to withdraw from Donbas – and Crimea? RAM
]
“Given Putin’s track record he is not one to roll over easily, and compromise is not generally in his vocabulary at least toward foes,” he wrote.
Stern reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Natalie Gryvnyak in Kyiv contributed to this report.
.
