Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Ukraine’s war is running out of road. Its soldiers have fought with honour and courage against overwhelming odds. They have defied expectations—mine included. I once thought Ukraine would collapse within weeks of coming under the weight of the Russian military; it did not.

But the brutal reality is this: wars are not won on honour and courage alone. They are won on force, logistics, and strategy—and Ukraine is running out of all three.

When Volodymyr Zelensky sat down with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to discuss a potential peace deal, he did not act like a man seeking to secure his country’s future. He acted like a man deeply uncomfortable with the reality of his situation.

Zelensky needed this deal. He needed this meeting to go well. If he wants peace – real peace, not a continuation of the war – then this was his opportunity. An opportunity he ruined because he does not understand the new reality in which he exists.

And here is that reality, framed as plainly as it can be:

“The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.”

Thucydides wrote that 2,500 years ago, and it remains just as true today. America does not need Ukraine. America does not need to back Ukraine. America does not need to continue this war. Ukraine, on the other hand, needs America. And yet, Zelensky has still not adjusted to the facts of the new administration.

A Man Uncomfortable with Negotiation

For days, media voices have painted this as an ambush—as if Zelensky was cornered by a hostile Republican bloc. I watched the full 50-minute meeting; that is not what happened. Trump and Vance were overwhelmingly positive about Ukraine. The Republicans I spoke to before the meeting believed a deal could be reached.

But Zelensky looked visibly uncomfortable whenever negotiation was mentioned. Whenever it was suggested that the war might end in a deal, he stiffened. Whenever the conversation turned to the fact that Russia had lost men, his face tightened – as if merely acknowledging those deaths without immediate condemnation was a moral failing rather than the truth.

And then Zelensky did something very silly.

He tried to reopen negotiations on areas America believed were settled. He pressed, he pushed, he postured. And when J.D. Vance responded – firmly, but hardly aggressively – the shift was unmistakable. But it wasn’t Vance’s pushback that ended the conversation. It was Zelensky’s own mistake.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already highlighted, in a CNN interview before this event, that the Trump administration believes Zelensky is personally duplicitous, saying plainly:

“The first thing we need to be honest about is that Zelensky’s made statements in English that are very different from statements he’s made in Ukrainian … and we need to understand that when we’re negotiating and having discussions with him.”

It’s possible Rubio is lying, and these conversations are private so we have no real way of knowing for certain, but the administration seems to believe it to be the case, as do the Republicans I have talked to about it. To many it was the heart of the blow up – they believe that Zelensky tells one story in private and another in public. That he plays to his Western audience, hoping they won’t notice the contradictions. This strategy only works if the other side needs you. But America does not need Ukraine.

Zelensky told Trump that America would feel the consequences of failing to support Ukraine. Then he pointed out that the U.S. was protected by an ocean. The implication was clear: America might feel safe, but America would suffer if it didn’t back Ukraine. That might have worked with Biden, but only a fool would have thought it would work with Trump.

At that moment, the conversation was over. The illusion that Ukraine had leverage collapsed in real-time.

America’s Objective: End the War

Zelensky has not come to terms with the reality Trump stated plainly:

“We’re looking to end the death.”

This is what European officials fail to understand when they spin wild theories that Trump must be bought by Russia. This isn’t about Moscow. This is about China.

Strategically, other than the extent to which Europe cares, it makes no difference to America if Ukraine even continues to exist. What does matter to America is dealing with China. That has been the reality of U.S. strategy since the Obama administration.

Trump’s administration has focused more on the importance of breaking Russia away from China, that is true, but not to an extent which is revolutionary or difficult to see the genesis of.

Washington has been telling Europe for over a decade that it would eventually pivot away, that it would focus on China, and that it needed Europe to take responsibility for its own security.

Europe ignored that warning. Now, it is throwing a tantrum because the pivot is finally happening.

The Fantasy of NATO and EU Membership

Zelensky continues to chase NATO and EU membership as if they are realistic goals. They are not. NATO membership is not just off the table – it is a provocation that guarantees escalation. It is one thing to send money and weapons, another to extend an Article 5 guarantee that would obligate European troops to fight Russia directly. No European leader is willing to do that, which makes their talk about NATO guarantees fundamentally unserious.​

European leaders continue to dangle the promise of NATO and EU membership in front of Ukraine, knowing full well that it will never happen. If they believed in Ukrainian NATO membership, they would be ready to send troops to fight for Kyiv. They are not. Their words are empty. Their promises are hollow. Zelensky’s biggest mistake is believing them.

Zelensky’s biggest mistake is believing them. But the greater tragedy is that this belief has shaped his entire approach to the war. Had he accepted reality earlier, he could have pursued a peace deal under better conditions. Instead, he fights for a security guarantee that will never come.

The Mineral Deal – Security Without Provocation

That is why Trump’s mineral deal matters. It locks America into Ukraine without the direct provocation of NATO or EU membership. It embeds American interests physically in Ukraine in a way that would make future Russian aggression vastly more complicated.

And yet, this point seems entirely lost on the voices sneering about how bad the deal is for America. They complain that Ukraine lacks enough rare earth metals to “repay” the military aid it has received – failing to grasp that repayment was never the point. This isn’t about recovering costs. It’s about embedding American leverage in a way that is sustainable and strategic.

Zelensky, however, doesn’t see it. Or he refuses to. He is still chasing NATO’s security guarantees—guarantees that will not come—while discarding the one option that might actually secure his country’s future.

A Matter of Taste, Not Strategy

A great deal of the backlash to this meeting is not about the substance of what was said, but about how it was said. People who do not understand power politics – or like to act as if they don’t when it’s useful to them – seem shocked that something like this could happen so coarsely. That Trump and Vance did not flatter Zelensky, that they did not present things in a way that allowed the illusion of endless support for a hero to be maintained.

To that, I would suggest reading some accounts of previous powerful statesmen meeting with weaker counterparts. By historical standards, what happened here was positively courtly. The difference here is that the public were allowed to see it.

No Theory of Victory

There is no clear path for Ukraine to win this war – not with America, and certainly not without it.

Just war theory, which should be of interest to those who have recently taken to scrutinizing Vance’s Catholicism, is explicit:

“The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated, and there must be serious prospects of success.”

What is that chance? Where is the path?

Europe is in no position to provide the missing resources. Macron, at least, has the right instinct – Europe should be able to project force. But France cannot carry the continent alone, and Macron has been ignored on this topic for years.

European leaders swore they would rearm after Russia took Crimea in 2014. They did not. Their militaries are not what they were decades ago, yet they negotiate as if they still hold that power. They do not.

• Germany’s ammunition reserves are so depleted that, at current production rates, it will take decades to match Russia’s weapons production. But this is not just about Germany – the entire European military structure is in decay. Without America, Ukraine’s lifeline is a continent that cannot even supply its own forces.
• The number of personnel in the British army is expected to fall to less than 70,000 this year – the lowest since the Napoleonic Wars.
• The EU’s promise of military investment post-2022? More talk than substance—most European nations still fail to meet NATO’s 2% GDP defense target.

There is no hidden European solution. There is no sudden military resurgence on the horizon. The reality is simple: if America steps back, Ukraine’s war effort either collapses or becomes the sort of every-man-woman-and-child-to-the-wall effort that will produce horror at scale.

The European Blind Spot

Many in Europe are so primed to dislike Trump and Vance that they cannot see what is happening. This is not a betrayal of America’s interests—it is a calculated strategy shift of the kind EU elites convinced themselves was no longer possible.

Europe has spent so long hiding under America’s military umbrella that it has lost the ability to think in terms of real power. It moralizes, it lectures, but it cannot fight. The EU’s primary strategy is to hope that America continues its generosity indefinitely—a strategy that is now collapsing in real-time.

For decades, Europe outsourced its security to America and pretended that this was in and of itself a strategy. It spent more time crafting speeches than building armies. It convinced itself that diplomacy was a substitute for deterrence. Now, the illusion has shattered. The EU is not a military power. It is a bystander.

Simply put, America does not need Zelensky to beg. It does not need him to plead. It does not need Ukraine to look good. It just needs the war to end so it can focus its attention on more important matters. It may hurt Ukrainians to hear that, but it is the truth.

This is where Zelensky’s mistake turns into sabotage. Because the moment he signaled that he was not interested in an agreement, the moment he chose to posture instead of securing his country’s future, he made himself an obstacle to America’s objectives.

Reality Wins in the End

Zelensky’s mistake in that meeting was not a failure of rhetoric. It was a failure to accept reality. The war will end. The only question is who will decide the terms.

For now, that answer is clear – and it isn’t either the EU or Zelensky.

It is impossible to look to the future with certainty, and I myself have been wrong about this war previously, but the simple, hard truth appears to be that Zelensky only has one choice left: accept peace on America’s terms or face years of unwinnable war. His people will suffer either way. The only question is whether that suffering will end with Ukraine intact – or as a broken, depopulated state with nothing left to bargain with.

Original article: Gript