The American President keeps pushing ‘deal’ outlines that the Ukraine is unlikely to accept….
“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Donald Trump told Time magazine in a largely sympathetic profile on Friday. And with that statement, the US president made clear that he wanted to carve up another country, Ukraine, and so legitimise the forcible seizure of land made by Moscow 11 years ago.
From reading the transcript of the interview, Trump’s thinking is hardly coherent. Crimea, he says, wouldn’t have been seized if he had been president in 2014, but “it was handed to them by Barack Hussein Obama” and now Crimea has “been with them [Russia] for a long time” – so it is time to accept the seizure.
The president does not even pursue the argument that a recognition of Russia’s occupation of Crimea is a necessary price of ending Russian military assault on Ukraine, though perhaps he thinks it – and instead the conversation is moved on by the reporters to discussing Trump’s aspirations for annexing Greenland and Canada. “The only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state,” he added.
Wars seldom end satisfactorily. The struggle, violence and sacrifice often does not bear the promised fruit. Invaded suddenly by Russia, Ukraine fought off the capture of Kyiv and existential collapse in the spring, summer and autumn of 2022 but has been unable to expel the attackers since, leaving Kyiv facing the reality of Russia occupying about 18% of its territory.
But the proposed US settlement term sheet – now in the public domainand verified by Trump’s comments about Crimea – is redolent of great power thinking at the end of previous wars: the carve-ups of Versailles in 1919, where a country that had only been narrowly defeated was treated as if it were conquered, or Potsdam in 1945, which divided Europe into west and east.
Ukraine’s own peace plan – an older version of which was also leaked on Friday – tries a different tack: a full ceasefire on the current frontlines first, then a discussion about territories later. It is not the conversation that the US or Russia want to have, but Kyiv argues, with European support, that peace should be rooted in international law, not capitulation. Agreements unjustly imposed do not endure.
The difficulty for Kyiv is, first, that it is the US proposing to give “de jure recognition of Russian control of Crimea” – so, a direct agreement with Russia. The second is that if Ukraine were determined to fight on, and hope that Trump would walk away, it risks losing military intelligence again – and the US may not sell Kyiv critical weapons such as Patriot air defence missiles.
Russia, meanwhile, is responding with a series of increasingly aggressive punishment bombings aimed at Ukrainian civilians. Nineteen were killed when a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih was bombed on 4 April; 35 died in a morning missile attack on Palm Sunday, 13 April, in central Sumy as families promenaded into town. Three more died overnight in Pavlohrad when a drone hit an apartment block.
This suggests a growing confidence that Russia will not be punished for starting a war, while Trump makes simple demands on social media for the war to stop….
ISW….Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 25, 2025
- Ukrainian and European representatives reportedly presented the United States with a proposal to end the war in Ukraine during the multilateral talks in London on April 23.
- Reuters also published the full text of the seven-point peace proposal that US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff reportedly presented to Ukrainian and European officials in Paris on April 17, supporting earlier reporting about the US peace proposal.
- US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on April 25, reportedly to secure a major Russian concession in a future peace deal.
- That the Kremlin is not formally demanding that Ukraine cede most or all of its territory to Russia at this time is not a significant Russian concession, however.
- Russian officials continue to intensify narratives used to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in order to set conditions to justify future Russian aggression against European states and control European defense policy in the Kremlin’s reflexive control campaign.
- Unknown actors assassinated the deputy head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, in Balashikha, Moscow Oblast, on April 25.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian forces recently advanced in Sumy and Kursk oblasts and near Pokrovsk.
Daily Kos grunt report for Today…
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