Ukraine may be presented with a fait accompli from a Trump-Putin deal – Financial Times columnist

Ukraine may be presented with a fait accompli resulting from a deal between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Kyiv’s stance of refusing to cede land is “unrealistic.”

This was written by Financial Times chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman.

He compares the upcoming Trump–Putin meeting, without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the 1938 Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was partitioned without its participation.

Rachman believes Putin “will be able to exploit the self-absorbed and vague-in-his-wording Trump.” As a result, scenarios in which Ukraine is presented with a deal struck by the two presidents — under threat of an end to military aid — are “entirely plausible.”

The author cites studies showing that Ukraine is “slowly losing,” meaning that “a complete breakdown of talks and continuation of the war is probably more advantageous to Russia than to Ukraine.” Therefore, he considers the position that “not an inch of territory can be ceded” to be “unrealistic.”

Kyiv, he suggests, may have to make certain concessions: de facto, though not de jure, recognition of Russian occupation of part of its territory “as a brutal reality”; postponing NATO membership, which in the foreseeable future “already looks unlikely.”

At the same time, Ukraine, in Rachman’s view, must stay the course toward EU integration and cannot agree to military limitations.

“Any agreement in Alaska is likely to be the start, not the end, of the process. Ukrainians and Europeans understand they will have to flatter Trump and play the long game. It’s not the best option. But it’s all they have,” Rachman concludes.