At the end of the meeting held in Alaska, many Ukrainians were alarmed by the very cordial, even servile attitude of the American president with regard to his Russian counterpart. They therefore expected the worst on the eve of the trip from Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House this Monday, August 18.
This meeting finally took place in a much more peaceful climate than that, disastrous, from last February which had seen Donald Trump humiliate his Ukrainian counterpart. The American president said he was ready to “help guarantee the security of Ukraine “ As part of a peace agreement, without however specifying its legal or operational scope. On the Ukrainian side, President Zelensky praised “A big step forward “ And said that “security guarantees “ could be formalized “in 7 to 10 days “.
A feeling of relief
Interviewed by CNN, Oleksandr Merejko, the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, did not hide his relief at the end of these exchanges: “I expected much worse “. According to him, the “your has changed “ Compared to the February interview: “Trump was not negative. One has the impression that the presidents have accustomed each other to each other. “
In Ukraine, the memory of the meeting of February 28 at the White House was thus long lived. Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance had then steeply interrupted Volodymyr Zelensky, the steak for his lack of gratitude and accusing him of endangering millions of lives, before putting an end prematurely in Reunion.
In Kherson, life is organized in the basement: “Staying more than an hour on the surface would be far too risky”
This clash had deeply marked Ukrainian opinion and nourished the fear that Washington seeks to impose painful concessions on kyiv. These fears resurfaced on the eve of the new trip. There are many those who feared that the American administration is trying to force Ukraine to yield part of its territory to Russia.
If this question of possible territorial concessions continues to fuel speculations, the Ukrainian president again underlined during his meeting with Trump that the implementation of such agreements would come up against two major obstacles: it would imply the massive movement of populations and would violate the Ukrainian Constitution, which prohibits any transfer of territory without modification by referendum.
“It’s not a video game”
“It is not a video game where you can give in a territory and continue to play a single click of mouse. Millions and millions of Ukrainians live there “ repeated the Ukraine ambassador to Germany, Oleksi Makeiev, this Tuesday, August 19.
According to Vadym Denysenko, the executive director of the Ukrainian Institute for the future and former deputy, the “Worse scenario “namely the interruption of American weapons sales to Ukraine in the event of kyiv’s refusal to yield the Donbass to Putin, has for the moment been dismissed. “”In general, the main result of this meeting is the sketch of the contours of a future security agreementhe wrote on Facebook the day after the meeting. The Russians certainly failed to obtain the essentials: they failed to fail negotiations by rejecting the fault of the Ukrainians. “
If the specter of territorial bargaining seems for the moment repelled, it remains to be seen whether the American promises will be sufficient to reassure a deeply suspicious Ukrainian opinion.
