Trump has pivoted to his go-to game … transactional quid pro quo … rare earth elements from Ukraine in exchange for U.S. military aid. Zelensky quickly agreed, saying he had made that suggestion to Trump in their meeting earlier this year. £6 trillion of Ukraine’s mineral resources, 53% of the country’s total, are contained in the four regions of which Putin's army occupies a swathe. By implication, Trump wants it all back under Ukrainian control. It is Putin who is now on the outside looking in. Trump’s envoy, General Kellogg, is going to go see Zelensky before going to see Putin.
Putin’s presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov publicly indicated that Putin is willing to negotiate with Ukrainian President Zelensky on resolving the three year old Russo-Ukrainian war which has brought so much destruction to both countries:
Russia ready to negotiate despite Zelensky's 'legitimacy problems,' Kremlin spox claims
"Mr. Zelensky has big problems de jure in terms of his legitimacy, but even so, the Russian side remains open to negotiations," Peskov claimed.
It is worth noting that the claim about Zelensky’s “illegitimacy” is nothing new. That has been Putin’s song ever since his pet Viktor Yanukovych was forced out of the Ukrainian presidency into exile in Russia by the popular Euromaidan revolution of 2014, sparking Russia’s invasion of Crimea and instigation of the breakaway puppet regimes in the Donbas. Every Ukrainian leader since then has been labeled as “illegitimate” by Putin and the Kremlin … including President Poroshenko and his successor President Zelensky, both duly elected in open democratic elections.
Nevertheless, Putin and Poroshenko did meet on the sideline of the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy France in 2014. Continuing informal discussions between the two revolved around the Franco-German lead Minsk Agreements concerning the resolution of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin was somehow able to put aside his qualms about “illegitimacy” to at least talk with the billionaire Poroshenko. But when Zelensky defeated Proshenko in a landslide victory in April 2022, Putin made it clear he would not talk to “the comedian”. He insisted that instead of he and the duly elected president of Ukraine continuing talks on the Minsk Accord, Zelensky should rather talk directly with the heads of the rebel pseudo-republics in Donetsk and Luhansk…. thus indirectly forcing Ukraine into giving legitimacy and recognition to the rebels aided and abetted by Russia. Of course, this is something Zelensky could not do.
In January 2015, Russia sent a large contingent of its regular military, which together with separatist forces of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) began a new offensive on Ukrainian-controlled areas, resulting in the complete collapse of The Minsk Agreements and its protocol on ceasefire. In the interregnum Russia’s saber-rattling entered a new heightened phase eventually leading to the events of February 24, 2022 and the present catastrophe.
Even as Trump re-entered the White House and started making favorable comments about Ukraine, Russia put on a full court press to get Trump and his minions to sing the “Zelensky is illegitimate” song which the White House re-worked into a call for new elections in Ukraine, an ongoing hot war with massive population dislocations not withstanding. As they are wont to do, the Tumpists had not thought through the full implications of what that meant. It was obvious that Putin wanted Poroshenko who has made it known that he wishes to run for president again or someone he found more amenable to his ego back in the presidency of Ukraine. It was also calculated to put pressure on Zelensky. And Putin hoped a likely negative Zelensky response will further annoy Trump given the history between the two. The ever wily Zelensky kept quiet. And to his credit, Poroshenko also quickly nixed the idea of new elections during war time. Not only that but elections in war time is illegal by Ukrainian law:
Zelensky’s Main Rival Blasts Idea of Elections During Wartime
Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has shot down Washington’s call for wartime elections in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’’s principal domestic political opponent, his predecessor, Petro Poprpshenko, has firmly rejected the idea of holding new elections in Ukraine during wartime.
The leader of the European Solidarity party is convinced that beginning electoral processes in Ukraine while Ukraine is at war will undermine internal unity and only benefit the Russian enemy, his party’s official website reported on Jan. 30.
With that gambit shot down, Trump quickly pivoted to another tack, one that is his go to game … transactional quid pro quo … rare earth elements from Ukraine in exchange for U.S. military aid. And Zelensky quickly agreed, saying he had made that suggestion to Trump in their meeting earlier this year.
Once again Zelensky has artfully and cleverly turned around what could have been a weak hand into pure gold. The quid pro quo is now publicly agreed. And it is Putin who is now on the outside looking in. Trump’s envoy, General Kellogg, is going to go see Zelensky first before going to see Putin. Putin’s chameleon-like buddy Erdogan of Turkey came out today saying he expects Russia to end the war by June 2025. Even Putin’s most useful fool in the EU and NATO, Viktor Orban, now under increasing political pressure at home in Hungary is gone wobbly:
Hungary wobbles on sanctions threat after Trump calls out Putin
Viktor Orbán has flirted with killing the EU’s Russia sanctions. But he didn’t get the ally he might have expected in Donald Trump.
But more importantly where are most of the Ukrainian rare earth that Trump wants located? You guessed it … mostly in the areas that Putin has wasted so much of Russia’s present and future assets on:
A little over £6 trillion of Ukraine’s mineral resources, which is around 53 per cent of the country’s total, are contained in the four regions Mr Putin illegally annexed in September 2022, and of which his army occupies a considerable swathe.
That includes Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, though Kherson holds little value in terms of minerals.
The Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed and occupied by Mr Putin’s forces in 2014, also holds roughly £165 billion worth of minerals.
The region of Dnipropetrovsk, which borders the largely occupied regions of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, and sits in the face of an advancing Russian army, contains an additional £2.8 trillion in mineral resources.
By implication, Trump wants it all back under Ukrainian control. And in the meantime, contrary to Putin’s expectations, Trump has not stopped the flow of military aid to Ukraine. And Ukraine’s army is growing stronger, re-organizing itself along the Western army corps system, re-assigning more personnel from rear echelon duties to the front lines … 55,000 or nearly 28 new but trained brigades ... at a time when Russia is struggling to keep up its dwindling conscription rates and forcing men on crutches or chained together into “meat assaults”.
And of course with every passing day, Ukraine gains more technologically advanced weapon systems to strike deep into Russia’s economic heartland putting more domestic pressure on Putin’s regime:
Ukraine gets weapons to exert strategic pressure on Russia
"If the Russians think they have tools for pressuring us, we too now have strategic pressure instruments against the Russians. These are manifested by Ukrainian Defense Forces units, equipped with long-range weaponry, regularly reminding the occupying Russian forces that they haven't solved certain organizational issues with their air defense, and now it’s too late for them to do so," Kyrychevskyi added.
It’s a tough place Putin, the self-acclaimed next level geopolitical chess grand master, finds himself nowadays.
Yeah, I too, would be anxious to negotiate, even with someone who is “Illegitimate” if that person is causing all my gambits to come up snake eyes.
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