Zelensky does not want to surrender Donbas so as not to lose the elections – The Atlantic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is resisting the surrender of Donbas in exchange for ending the war because he is thinking about future elections: he believes that if Ukraine makes territorial concessions to Russia, he will lose them.

This is reported by journalist Simon Shuster in an article for The Atlantic.

The piece notes that U.S. President Donald Trump urged Zelensky to end the war already during their last meeting in October. The White House leader did not even look at the frontline maps that the Ukrainian president tried to show him.

Shuster writes that before the meeting, Zelensky had promised Trump that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would be able to encircle Russian troops near Pokrovsk, but by the time of the October visit of the Ukrainian delegation to Washington this had not happened, and Trump’s mood changed.

It was after this meeting, according to recordings of conversations by special envoy Stephen Witkoff, that Washington and Moscow began preparing a new peace agreement, which later took the form of the 28-point plan.

In the White House, in addition to Trump himself, it is Vice President J.D. Vance who is insisting on ending the war at any cost; he is keen to do this before next year’s midterm elections.

When the corruption scandal broke out in Ukraine, the vice president and other White House officials concluded that it would prevent the Ukrainians from effectively opposing the peace agreement.

After the scandal, the U.S. side began to promote the idea that other ways of ending the war had failed, and that any further delays would lead to new casualties and further territorial losses for Ukraine. U.S. General Daniel Driscoll voiced these arguments in Kyiv, as other media have also reported.

In Ukraine, the chosen tactic has been to agree with Trump rhetorically, so as not to give grounds to portray Kyiv as an obstacle to peace. At the same time, de facto Ukraine intends to resist in every possible way the main demand of Russian President Vladimir Putin — the withdrawal of troops from Donbas — which is also reflected in the 28 points of the peace plan.

According to a source in the President’s Office, surrendering Donbas would be “political suicide” for Zelensky.

“If he gives up even one square kilometer, that will become the main issue in any election. Any opponent will hammer him over it until he breaks,” a close aide to the president said.

According to Shuster’s Ukrainian interlocutors, in all other respects Kyiv is prepared to accept any formats for a ceasefire. However, the Russians have already made it clear that they will not back away from their main demands, so the peace process risks simply returning to a deadlock.

Let us recall that Trump has said that in the coming months, regardless of how events develop, Russia may capture even more Ukrainian territory, and therefore a peace deal must be concluded.

Earlier, Putin said that if the Ukrainian authorities do not agree to the peace plan or, together with the Europeans, try to rewrite it, Russia will achieve its objectives militarily on the battlefield.