Attrition talks, or how to say "no" right way
This is one of those cases where Ukraine can, in good conscience, use the ruscist "diplomatic" model of denial: "Yes, but…"
That is why a Ukrainian team of negotiators led by Yermak has been sent to Switzerland for talks with the American delegation, to finally prove his usefulness to the country.
The mission is obvious.
REUTERS/Emma Farge
"Yes" — to commitment to peace and to the very need to craft yet another victory plan.
"But" — to the substance of the points, most of which flatly contradict Ukraine’s Constitution and international law and therefore would mean impeachment for any president who dared to sign something like that.
Still, the "no" has to be said not just to a ruscist plan wrapped in bad American wording.
The "no" has to be said personally to Trump.
This trick has to be pulled off so that the Master of Deals himself feels disgust and insult at the slip of paper pushed on him by the sweet Witkoff–Dmitriev duo.
And so that on his triumphal march to a Nobel Peace Prize, he bets on peace-as-victory rather than peace-as-betrayal.
Regarding the Nobel Prize.
This year, Trump probably just didn’t look at the Nobel Committee’s calendar. And it matters. Now he seems to have checked the schedule of a body that does not depend on him.
So, on January 31 each year, nominations for the Nobel Prize, including the Peace Prize, close. In February, the Nobel Committee holds its first meeting, where committee members can still submit the final nominations for the current year.
It seems these dates are now setting the time frame Trump is trying to squeeze his so-called peace track into, pressing Ukraine toward an "immediate decision" as well.
That also helps explain our intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov’s "mysterious" reference to February 2026 as a potential window of opportunity for Ukraine to launch a real negotiating process.
In other words, things will return to normal assessments and normal talk only once the "maestro" either falls flat again or actually makes headway in his bid to jump onto the Nobel train.
To keep the client from blowing up, Zelenskyy has to work with him throughout this period like one performer dealing with another. That is doable alongside the Europeans, who have reached unprecedented heights in keeping Trump’s bathwater at the perfect temperature.
Whether it will be easy to say "no" to the American generals who, in some mysterious way, managed in two days to inspect the front and declare our situation there disappointing is a question for a specialized army of experts. Though, of course, first and foremost, it is a question for the commanders of our real army, against the backdrop of brazen plans to shrink it and strip it of weapons.
Somehow, we need to delicately explain to the leaders of the world’s top army that the plan to cut down and disarm the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is an acknowledgment of the AFU’s strength, not weakness, of having "cards," not lacking them.
But God forbid we offend the gentlemen generals by suspecting them of incompetence, Afghanistan syndrome, or, even more so, being beholden to ruscists interests…
Zelenskyy's next "no" is to Russia.
Nearly the only difference between this stage of the "peace process" and all the previous ones is the absence of Russia`s complaint about Zelenskyy’s illegitimacy.
Source: Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Facebook
If, from the ruscists’ side, this is just a bow to Trump so he won’t nag that Putin "doesn’t want peace," then even in that case the Kremlin is effectively acknowledging that Zelenskyy has the legal right to sign some agreement on behalf of Ukraine.
And that acknowledgment is strong proof that Russia needs these agreements.
Which means the grim forecasts for Russia are more relevant than similar ones for Ukraine.
Accordingly, Zelenskyy has gained an excellent opportunity to refuse to sign the proposed act of capitulation not because he lacks authority, but precisely because he has it.
Through an awareness of responsibility for what exactly he is signing.
Especially against the backdrop of a corruption scandal.
No, blackmail by insinuating involvement in systemic corruption is not, in Ukraine, the execution of an FSB playbook, that is, an effective coercion into state treason.
Let the Western press wear down Ukraine’s mental strategic patience no less than the ruscists propaganda sewers do.
Let the temptation to share with the country the responsibility for "tough decisions" test the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for having not only a status, but a personality as well.
But the corruption scandal has shaken society and the Verkhovna Rada just enough to leave no chance of pushing any anti-constitutional rags through parliament.
What matters is that it is Russia that needs Zelenskyy’s signature.
As a trophy — but not only that.
Just recall what those autographs by the authorized envoys on the draft Istanbul talks ended up costing Ukraine, and earlier still, Yermak’s little signature squiggle on the draft Steinmeier Formula…
So no, no, and no — without any of those "buts."
And finally, the corruption scandal and the conversation with society.
As we can see, for now, Zelenskyy has told society "no" on Yermak’s resignation and on the government stepping down.
But the American "peace plan" has not only eclipsed the problem — it has also seemingly explained why resignations are not on time.
Because someone has to do the dirty job of digging through the toxic inventions of Putin’s scribblers.
Instead, Zelenskyy must deliver a firm "NO" to Ukrainian society on the idea that behind a banal, albeit high-level corruption scheme, there is real, deep, systemic, exhausting sabotage.
Sabotage that would so genuinely weaken Ukraine’s physical condition that a pseudo-peace "plan" would look like a lifebuoy.
With Andrii Derkach’s name surfacing even in a NABU–SAPO investigation, denying sabotage is not the easiest task for the president.
Mentioning this "fighter against the Bidens" in the context of Trump and his claims against Zelenskyy over a "Ukrainian impeachment" makes it impossible to believe that Bankova had no inkling whatsoever about this character with such a rich background.
And that rather strips Zelenskyy’s current security team of the excuse of "green incompetence" or "short-sightedness" when it comes to controlling the potentially destructive mission of Russia`s current senator in Ukraine’s long-running politics — especially when viewed together with Zelenskyy’s personnel policy at the start of his rule and at the outset of the full-scale invasion…
And about "international affairs."
When the invasion began and our Western partners pulled out their embassies, warning our diplomats that Ukraine would fall in days or weeks, and when they said "no" to requests for weapons, they had no "but."
Instead, they were already picturing how things would look next.
How exactly the Ukrainian state "disappears" from the political map of Europe and the world.
What resolutions the UN adopts on the matter.
Whether Russia reclaims the name of a union and which one exactly, and so on, and so on…
Over four years, quite a lot has changed in this partner’s rhetoric of denial, yes.
But this strange "negotiating peace process" leaves a suspicion that all the current "no’s" from our Western partners are still rooted in those old visions of a world without Ukraine.
And those "28 points of Trump" are just an old template, lightly dusted with the sick fantasies of the "co-authors", copied from earlier projects of sacrificing Ukraine on the altar of a relatively peaceful coexistence of the so-called "poles."
Even though they themselves can’t quite figure out how many of those "poles" there are on the planet now…
So maybe it is time to lay out exactly what our Western partners were scaring us with then, and are scaring us with now.
And then further negotiations "about peace" will become far less exhausting for everyone who truly wants peace.
Iryna Pohorielova, for Censor.NET
