President Trump and Western leaders must act to ensure that Zelensky prevails
03 June 2025
The stony-faced Russian “peace” negotiators in Istanbul yesterday handed, in effect, a surrender document to the Ukrainian delegation as their terms for peace and a ceasefire. It amounted to almost the complete subjugation of the Ukrainian population, the loss of four oblasts in totality, and of course giving up any claim to to the territory of Crimea.
It also required the demobilisation of the Ukraine military, cutting all ties with the West and Europe, and basically returning to the position Ukraine held in the Soviet Union as a satellite state of Moscow.
This is, of course, what Putin declared his 3-week Special Military Operation was meant to achieve in February 2022. Having failed to do this by military force, why the Russians believe they can now negotiate this state of affairs must be even beyond the most “thick-skinned-ostrich” type leader in the West. But it will certainly not outwit the Ukrainian president.
No doubt smarting from the audacious Ukrainian strike deep into Russia on Sunday – which has destroyed a third of the jets which constantly attack hospitals and schools across Ukraine, and also carries Putin’s much flaunted tactical nuclear weapons – maybe the Russian military machine is running out of road?
Russia has suffered one million casualties. The price of oil, which sustains Putin’s war machine, is falling through the floor. It is becoming apparent that the Russian army is reaching its culminating point; and Putin be reaching his in the Kremlin, if rumours and the growing discontent amongst the rank and file in the Russian hinterland are to be believed.
The complete disdain of the Russian negotiators for their Ukraine counterparts is summed up by the Russian team leader at one moment in the hour-long talks accusing the Ukrainians of “putting on a show” after they handed over a list of hundreds of Ukrainian children they wanted to be returned from Russia.
“Do not put on a show for European tender-hearted aunties who do not have children themselves,” he said, according to a quote shared with The Telegraph by a member of the negotiating team. Not only do the Russians take President Trump for a fool, but apparently the “pathetic” Europeans too.
If confirmation is needed that Putin has no interest in peace, unless it involves the complete capitulation of the Ukraine population and the absorption of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, then the Russian peace document “chucked” at the Ukrainian negotiators is it.
President Trump and Western leaders must act to ensure that Ukraine can prevail, and its destruction of $7 billion of Russian military hardware at the weekend must give us confidence that if we give Zelensky the tools his military and secret service can finish the job.
The UK’s SDR announcement yesterday may deter future Russian aggression in five year’s time, but that will be of little use if we must join the battle with Putin sooner. And it will also be pointless if we allow Ukraine to fall to Moscow, which is only the start point of the Russian leader’s desire to reinstate the Soviet Union’s western borders.
Comment from :
Howard Morrison
Sound article…Putin is under the sad illusion/delusion that he is Peter the Great. We need to learn the hard lessons of history..and quickly.
William Blake
” Putin’s rotten ‘peace deal’ is calling for Ukraine’s destruction.” What else should be expected ? Leopards never change their spots and Putin wants to survive.
Simon Nahk
I suspect Trump thinks Putins ambitions are reasonable. Trump likes dominance and power and thinks that Russia is just demonstrating its strength. Nothing for Trump to interfere with. He’s still back in the 18th century with his pal Vlad.
Matt Forster
Hamish is right. The Russian negotiators are behaving like victors dictating terms of surrender. But the truth is that the war has been a monumental failure for Russia.
It has gained control of only 19% of the country it originally set out to conquer, mostly waste land littered with mines and unexploded munitions, none of the major cities, and this at the cost of a million men lost, its armour and trained ground forces pretty much wiped out, along with much of the strategic bombers and its Black Sea fleet, and with huge losses of money, foreign investments and international respect. And Zelensky, Putin’s bête noire, is still in Kyiv leading a pro-Western government.
So all in all, a very costly failure by a former superpower now sinking deeper and deeper into irrelevance.
Peter Cumpson
Like Hitler demanding Britain surrender the day after the Dambusters raid. Even he would have realised such a demand would be risible.
Dario O’Grady
Extremists are all fundamentally evil, be it ideology or religious they have no qualms about killing for their goals, the kremlin is stuffed with extremists as is Terhan. Supporting anyone who refuses to be bowed by these extremists are on the right side of humanity and history. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
Auclan McIntyre
What Putin doesn’t understand is the original USSR was as crap as Russia is now. Nobody wants it back except fantasists like him and load of the older people in Russia who know no different.
Robert Findlater
Yes Russia needed the west on the 2nd ww2 for help. But remember what Stalin did. He moved all war industries to the east out of bomber range
Russia has huge untapped assets which many countries have ignored to their cost. Read Russian history they have a totally different logic to the west; that is why they are behaving like they are against Ukraine, it is normal for them. The mistake they made in Ukraine is that the gene pool is the same as Russia with the same outlook on life
Reader peter
Reply to Robert Findlater
Not the same gene pool. Russians are Finno-ugric mongols. Do a little genetic research before you bumper sticker the entire Ukrainian nation. Put “haplotype” into your google machine, then Russia, then Ukraine. Not to mention the Russian psyche, which has always preferred a strong single ruler, compared to the Ukrainian free cossack mentality. Ukraine is European, Russia is asiatic in its outlook.
Justa Dingbat
NOW is surely the time for Trump to prove he’s not all mouth and no trousers – hammer Russia with sanctions and tariffs, while delivering more potent means to Ukraine, who have consistently demonstrated their bravery, fortitude and ingenuity in the face of (supposedly) overwhelming odds.
If ANYONE deserves the freedom to choose their own future, it’s Ukraine!
Ukraine today gave their answer to putler’s demands. The panic in the Kremlin must be a sight to behold. They will be wondering what’s next.
I would pay good money to see live what’s happening in the mafia headquarters. 😂
More importantly, which side will the war criminal choose? His loyalty lies with the FSB, but he appointed this accountant to lead the military, so it will be interesting.
I might have to get my popcorn ready and beer chilled.
Any reasonable adult and even adolesents knew right from the get-go that this peace negotation would be a complete farce.