Cease fire with the forces remaining as the American president has chosen, having once again alarmed Kiev and the European allies. More and more leaks about what was revealed during the last visit of the president of Ukraine Zelensky to the White House reinforce the concerns of the European allies, who normally should have already been informed first hand, about the bad climate in discussion with Trump. According to the Financial Times, the dialogue was more like a “fight with voices” than a discussion of coordination of the next moves towards Moscow.

It’s not just that the American president denied Tomahawk missiles in Kyiv. What is troubling is the opinion that the US president is now expressing publicly, that a ceasefire can only be achieved if both sides stop with their forces where they are today, which would be difficult for Ukraine to accept.

A difficult exchange

According to leaks over the weekend, mainly from the Washington Post, Putin could agree to withdraw from the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia if Ukraine agreed to withdraw from the Donbass (i.e. Donetsk and Luhansk). Knowing the difficulty of accepting this “proposal”, Trump suggests that the two warring parties leave the Donbass divided, ceasing hostilities, with troops where they are today. Any other negotiation would be too difficult, he says.

Essentially, the American president again chooses a logic of equal distances and in this way makes a turn again from the previously apparent warmer support for Ukraine that he had expressed in September. However, Trump denied the information that he proposed to Zelensky the full surrender of the Donbas region, which could be interpreted as a victory, at least in parts, for Putin.

The feeling, however, in the Western press is that the roughly two-hour phone call between the US and Russian presidents last week influenced Trump and brought him closer to the Russian positions. It is indicative that in an interview with FoxNews he argued that “Putin will want to get something”, since he “has significant conquests on the ground”.

Waiting for Budapest

The American president reiterated that he will meet with Putin in Budapest, without specifying a date yet. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised the choice of the Hungarian capital for such a meeting, the preparation of which, he said, is still at an early stage, due to the good relationship of the “host” Viktor Orban with both Putin and Trump. The foreign ministries in Moscow and Washington confirmed that Sergei Lavrov and Marco Rubio had a telephone conversation to prepare for the meeting of the presidents.

On the part of the Commission, there were reservations about the choice of the specific location, as well as on the part of Volodymyr Zelensky himself, who, however, hastened to add that he would travel to Budapest, if invited. However, he claimed that his meeting with Trump last Friday was particularly “positive”. According to information, the president of Ukraine will take part in the EU summit on Thursday. EU foreign policy chief Kaya Kalas stressed that the message to Trump should be to ease the pressure on Putin.

Sources: ARD, DW News