The president of the United States, Donald Trump, once again indicated in the last few hours that any pact between Russia and Ukraine to end the war between them would mean the second country giving up part of its territories.
Representatives from kyiv and Moscow are scheduled to meet tomorrow and the day after in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to resume negotiations that were interrupted in February.
In an interview with a US radio station, Trump expressed confidence in the outcome of the new diplomatic effort. "I think we will achieve it (a peace agreement), I think it will happen and, in the end, you will have a Ukraine with a slightly different shape," he said, assuming that kyiv will have to give up part of its geography.
According to the Bloomberg agency, the Russian delegation will be made up of more important figures than those who attended the last meetings in what may be a sign of Moscow's new willingness to dialogue with kyiv.
The Russian team will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, advisor to President Vladimir Putin, but will also have two deputy foreign ministers, the head of Military Intelligence, Mykhailo Hazuzin, and a senior military official, Yuri Zhigarlovsky.
For its part, the Ukrainian representation will be led by the head of the foreign intelligence service, Rustem Umerov, and the head of the president's office, Kyrylo Budanov, according to local media.
Divergent goals
The two countries have expressed their willingness to negotiate but with completely divergent objectives. For Moscow, it is a priority to discuss the territorial cessions that it demands from its rival to stop hostilities, while Ukraine demands that the security measures that its country will receive first be established to prevent Russia from resuming the war in the future, if an agreement is reached.
Zelensky himself already declared a few days ago that "the question of territories is a red line that can only be addressed at the level of leaders."
"Our security guarantees cannot be dictated by the Russian side. The limitation of our army and the neutrality of Ukraine are not up for debate. The Americans have long raised the issue of a territory swap; they call it a land swap," he added.
Most experts doubt the chances of success of this dialogue in the midst of the escalation of war between both nations, and when Moscow seems determined to subdue its rival through a constant air offensive aimed at destroying its economy and energy infrastructure.
On the 22nd, the Ukrainian president suggested that the conflict remain frozen along the current front lines without this implying that kyiv renounces sovereignty over the occupied territories. "No one will recognize the occupied Ukrainian territories as Russian," added the local leader.
EU security
The British newspaper Financial Times reported last week that several European capitals have expressed their apprehension over the possibility that Donald Trump may try to reach an agreement with Russia that puts the EU's own security at risk.
Trump met with a Kremlin envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, last Thursday and said that the peace plan he is designing "will be a big deal that will cover more than just Ukraine, maybe it will involve all of Europe."
An indication that was reinforced by a post by his son-in-law, who wrote that Washington seeks to "develop practical agreements that address the security concerns of all parties," including "a durable framework for long-term European security and stability."
Kushner has expressed his intention to reactivate the so-called NATO-Russia Council that was created in 2002 to maintain collaboration between the military alliance and Moscow. The institution was dismantled after the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine distrusts possible agreements with Moscow and Washington given the historical experience that marked the famous Budapest pacts of 1994, with which it renounced its nuclear arsenal and signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty of this type of weaponry in exchange - supposedly - for the promise that the signatories would prevent "military force or economic coercion" from being used against their state, something that was proven to be simply a dead letter.
Both the country's politicians and the majority of society consider that this agreement was one of the most strategic mistakes of their leadership and defend that if Ukraine had not gotten rid of its atomic weapons, the current war would never have occurred.
The US initiative began to take shape last September and acquired a new dynamic after Washington's concession to Moscow by lifting sanctions on diesel exports, a decision that generated enormous controversy in Ukraine and the EU.
The resumption of contacts - if it materializes - has not prevented Moscow from continuing its attack on Ukrainian infrastructure and economic interests.
This Monday, jet drones launched from Crimea hit a warehouse in the southern city of Odessa, leaving at least 3 dead.
