Zelensky Said ‘No’ To Trump Three Times

This is truly brave.

The path between Munich and Riyadh turned out to be short. As they say, from hate to love is one step. Surprisingly, at this distance, almost no one and nothing surprised me. Trump, Putin, Vance, Lavrov, Rubio, Dmitriev, Macron, Scholz, Merz, Starmer — almost all of them acted within the framework of the role assigned to them in advance, as investigators write in their reports.

Everyone said and did exactly what they had long intended and repeatedly promised to say or do. We, in general, were promised betrayal and a separate conspiracy, and we got betrayal and a separate conspiracy. And the fact that until the last moment we did not believe that everything would happen exactly as it did — that is our problem, and not the problem of “traitors” (ugh, here we go again with that word).

But there was one person who surprised everyone. Really did. Perhaps, for the first time since the summer of 2023. This person was Zelensky. He alone went beyond the flags of the role assigned to him — Benes. And for history it no longer matters what will happen to him next — most likely, nothing good — what matters is that for the second time in three years he broke the pattern. This will be remembered.

Before Munich, Zelensky was obviously broken and brought to the “point of agreement” with a plan that had long been an “open secret” for everyone: a ceasefire along the existing line of confrontation, holding elections (after which, according to the scriptwriters, he was supposed to disappear), and then long “peace squabbles” leading to infinity.

This plan allowed Putin and Trump to calmly engage in “normalization” behind the backs of not only Ukraine, but also all of Europe. And everything could have worked out quite quickly, almost in a day, as promised, if not for Zelensky's desperate stubbornness. Zelensky has once again made the already well-defined situation uncertain, thanks to which the finale of Ukraine's military drama is moving away from us as we are approaching it, like a horizon line.

In essence, Zelensky has said “no” three times in a few days. And not to Putin, but to Trump. No to the meeting (including in Riyadh), where he is not the first. No to elections in Ukraine before “full normalization”. No to turning Ukraine into the “New Ivory Coast” without security guarantees (as far as I understand, with guarantees is okay). This is truly courageous in the situation in which he himself and all of Ukraine find themselves today.

Vladimir Pastukhov, Telegram

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