Peloni: Zelensky burned a great deal of credibility with Trump for very little gain. As I noted before, doing so was a very big mistake, for him and Ukraine. The inartful choice of retreating thru a tweet rather than a via public statement or interview speaks to the fact that this needed doing quickly without the possibility of Zelensky putting a foot wrong after having failed to repair the situation thru many interviews. Hence, as Sundance explains below, no one should or likely does Trust Zelensky’s newly broached move towards championing peace.
According to Reuters, the Trump Administration and Ukraine are expected the sign the much-debated “Mineral Deal” sometime today, without any kind of Ceremony or Press Briefing; as U.S. President Donald J. Trump has told his Advisors he wants to be able to announce the Agreement… pic.twitter.com/RQ8zVh5Q3G
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 4, 2025
Sundance | March 4, 2025
No one should trust him, but Volodymr Zelenskyy just caved.
Posting to Twitter (X platform) the Ukraine President delivers the following message:
“I would like to reiterate Ukraine’s commitment to peace.
None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.
We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same. Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the US to agree a strong final deal.
We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. And we remember the moment when things changed when President Trump provided Ukraine with Javelins. We are grateful for this.
Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive.
Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format. We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively.”
~ Volodymyr Zelenskyy (link)
Too convenient. Not buying the sincerity. Let’s watch what happens.
Reuters
This is part of a roll-back of Biden era programs which offered expanded immigration protections to 1.8 million foreigners.
@Sebastien
The map I found was from a Substack article I read last week. I will post it when I locate it, but I would defer to Forbes’ report as being likely more accurate. Thanks for the correction.
@Peloni I had posted this map which has more in Donbas. There seems to be some disagreement.
“The majority of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral reserves are located in regions currently under Russian occupation, including Donetsk and Luhansk—which make up the Donbas—as well as Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Putin in 2014.
According to Forbes, approximately 70 percent of Ukraine’s estimated $14.8 trillion in critical mineral resources are concentrated in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Luhansk. Russia currently controls a significant portion of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, collectively known as the Donbas.”
https://www.newsweek.com/map-ukraine-rare-earth-minerals-putin-trump-2035902
Where is your map from?
@Sebastien
Redacted is overstating the truth. The territory Russia controls is rich in coal and other minerals, and even has some Rare Earth deposits, but most of the rare earth deposits sit outside of what Russia currently controls.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc47e4caf-75aa-4030-a927-7fbec79abfb0_670x495.jpeg
Trump is giving Ukraine a good deal, but he is getting access to Ukraine’s mineral rights in return for embroiling the US in Ukraine. Personally, I think he may well come to regret doing so, but he needs the war in Ukraine to end, and this will lead to that potentiality, if Zel doesn’t successfully blow up the negotiations which I think he has made it clear is his intent at this point.
Would you buy a used car from this man?
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/10/ukraine-zelensky-minsk-peace-russia/
https://youtu.be/aWKYGI4Cay0?si=RtJuQtUN-bWEsIbo
Really stupid as well as rude. The minerals are in Donbas in what is now part of the Russian Federation. Putin has indicated a willingness to grant the U.S. access.
@Reader
He was ungrateful, and he said a great deal previously to the 10 min. clip. Here is the full press conference and my comments follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pxbGjvcdyY
At 12min Zel corrects Trump stating that Trump was wrong when he stated that Europe gave a lot less than the US.
But the most egregious point you should look at is at 23min, just after Trump announces that discussing security terms needs to wait, and the ceasefire needs to be completed now, Zel injects his own comments stating that the ceasefire will not work. He states that he has experience and the ceasefire will not work. It is at this point that Zel also asserts his need of significant military systems after Trump just stated that he will be giving Ukraine arms, but hopefully not a lot because the war is going to end. He immediately follows this statement with the assertion that Russia will be paying for the war, suggesting that he will use Russia’s $300 billion gold reserves which he states “we can use that”. Trump’s response is to straiten his jacket, a key indicator of his annoyance at Zel’s statement. Trump reinforces his annoyance by next stating that “it’s wonderful to speak badly about somebody else…”.
The interchange at about 30min which goes on for a bit shows that Zel is pulling further away from Trump, using his routine talking points which was clearly out of place at this point, and he ends by drawing attention to Trump’s statement about having a big ocean between US and Europe by stating that “it doesn’t matter if you have a big ocean or not, your soldiers will fight.”
Trump’s immediate response raises the fact of Ukraine’s devastated cities, which sparks yet another opportunity for Zel to correct Trump, stating “maybe it is Russia is sharing this information” – a reference to Zel’s previous statement that Trump is under Russia’s influence.
At 40min, in response to a reporter questioning if Trump was aligned with Ukraine, Vance gave a reasonable response suggesting that diplomacy should replace alignments, and this is where Zel challenged Vance with a long dialogue about why diplomacy won’t work, and addressed Vance as ‘JD’ as he asks “what kind of diplomacy are you talking about” which is what set the stage for the last ten minutes.
Context matters, and Zel, one of the most experienced actors on the world stage, knew exactly what he was doing in all of this, as he challenged, not just Trump, but the very premise of negotiations, which is all that the mineral deal is meant to accomplish. The greater context of this exchange, however is that Zel met with Trump’s Dem enemies, Zel’s old allies, just before coming to the Oval office, and afterwards went to Europe to try to walk around the US.
This is the disrespect which he demonstrated, all the time stating that he had nothing to apologize for doing, when in fact, he really did, and still does.
@Reader Foundit:
Shows the moment but I can’t find the whole press conference now. I saw it live. It was friendly pleasantries for quite some time then bam! Suddenly Zelensky starts demanding security guarantees that were never part of the deal he had agreed to.
@Reader I did, under the Israpundit post, “Who did Zelinsky speak to” or something like that. It was from redacted. Maybe Peloni can find it again. The whole press conference was broadcast live. Zelensky suddenly turned on Trump, at one point. After a woman next to him passed a message to him.
@Sebastien Zorn
Maybe you can post the video where Zelensky pulled this stunt, maybe I missed the crucial moments.
The clip that I watched showed both Trump and Vance loudly lecturing him, calling him ungrateful, and hardly letting him say a word.
It is unusual for such events to be made public.
They were supposed to sign the agreement, then have lunch, and AFTER lunch to have a joint conference.
How many foreign guests have ever pulled such a stunt? Zelensky deliberately embarrassed the United States publicly in its most sacrosanct space. He owes my country an apology. Aside from the politics of it, I was repeatedly enraged at foreigners who came here during Obama and Biden and insulted America and me for being an American on our home turf. I left the Dem party in Obama’s first week in office because I was enraged at the way he disrespected Israel. Americans are proud people. Jews should be just as proud.
@Reader When’s the last time a foreign leader pulled a stunt like that before the cameras in the White House? The signing ceremony was a formality. Debates had taken place in private. And then agreement. The proposed agreement was published a week before in Newsweek. and months before in RT. There were no surprises. He came there under false pretenses and used the occasion to embarrass and humiliate the United States in its most sacrosanct space before the whole world, regardless of who the president is. Americans are a very proud people. He miscalculated. Trump and Vance’s reaction met with overwhelming approval from the American public. And Trump said he let this go on so long so the American people would see what was going on. Transparency.
I think it was only when Starmer said UK support was contingent on U.S. support for the war that Zelensky realized that he really did have no cards left to play. President Trump has actually been very predictable in that he has been keeping his campaign promises and this is one of them. He was elected to end the war. What he is doing is number 8 in the GOP 2024 platform
“
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform.
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For the entire last half of the 20th century, Democrats and Republicans both understood that it would be madness to directly attack the Soviet Union because it was a nuclear power and World War III could literally end the world. Russia inherited that capability.
How could their successors be so stupid, so divorced from reality? Trump is right when he says that what he is doing is just common sense. Our leaders completely lost their minds after a certain point.
Remember MAD?
“Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.”
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Zelensky led Trump to believe that he was ready to sign but, showman that he is, he miscalculated and thought he could embarrass Trump in front of the whole world by suddenly reneging in front of the cameras.
Big mistake, especially in the Oval Office. He not only insulted Trump. He insulted America. When Trump said this, it wasn’t hyperbole.
You know, people are often misled by our internal wrangling and “citizen of the world” poses but nations have national characters which come out under pressure and America is a very proud country when push comes to shove. It’s one thing to embarrass us abroad but to come here and do it provokes rage.
I think the Jihadists perpetrated 9/11 because they thought the U.S. was a paper tiger like the Europeans, e.g. Spain, which responded to bombings there by electing a dhimmi Socialist government or Italy, which secretly agreed to do leave the PLO alone as long as they only attacked Jews, which is why they let the ring leader of the Achillo Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghofer go. In fact, the U.S. went to war against the Barbary pirates where the Europeans were willing to pay ransom.
But, our over the top reaction in Iraq and Afghanistan has made them be sneakier about their Jihad. They don’t want to wake the sleeping lion, in the words of Admiral Yamamoto (at least in the movie).
@Reader
This is an absurd conclusion. I continue to be amazed at the attempts to paint Pres. Trump as an antisemite, and your conclusion here is only the latest installment of this silliness.
WOW!!! The punishment and demands continue:
https://www.rt.com/news/613761-cia-halt-intelligence-sharing-ukraine/
https://www.rt.com/news/613764-us-bars-uk-sharing-intel-ukraine/
https://www.rt.com/news/613763-trump-ukraine-bigger-deal-resources/
??? Is Russia trying to attract Zelensky?
https://www.rt.com/news/613766-trump-zelensky-talks-peskov/
Now Zelensky is supposed to deliver a televised public apology for his behavior before they sign the agreement.
If this happens, we will know for sure that he was forced to surrender.
So far, this note doesn’t sound too apologetic to me.
I also suspect that his being Jewish provoked the excessive hostility and the need to really humiliate him even though it wasn’t the actual reason for the dressing down.
I think that the way he was given a public flogging in that meeting and forced to apologize for it was unprecedented in the annals of (public) diplomacy.
@Laura
I didn’t say anyone surrendered. Zel, however, certainly did attenuate the tone and content of his previous statements and interviews, which of course was necessary. As Trump exclaimed, Zel has no cards to play. The sad reality is that this has been the situation with Ukraine since the US began their takeover of that fledgling, corrupt, den of iniquity.
What you mean is that he’s being forced to surrender.