Negotiating About Our Future - Just Without Us: Trump Treats Ukraine As If It Could Simply Be Handed Over to Moscow

Until shortly before this article, we were still researching, conducting conversations, gathering information. What Trump calls a peace plan goes further than anything Moscow ever dared to hope for. In Kyiv, people lived for years with an apparently firm certainty: Ukraine decides its own future. No talks behind closed doors, no agreements made over other people’s heads. But this very principle is now being undermined by the partner without whom the country would no longer be militarily capable of surviving. The Trump administration is negotiating with Moscow on a draft peace plan that cuts deeply into Ukraine’s sovereignty - without Ukraine, without Europe, without the people who die in this war every day. What looks like a diplomatic mishap follows a pattern. Washington is working on several tracks at once: one involving security guarantees, one involving geopolitical shifts - and one involving territorial concessions that are simply unacceptable for Ukraine.

The fact that the United States prepared such a draft with Russia strikes Europe and Ukraine not only unprepared, but at the heart. Hardly anyone expected Washington to take up demands that have been coming from the Kremlin for years. Kaja Kallas, the top representative of EU foreign policy, found clear words for this. Without the consent of those who bear this war, there can be no viable plan. But while Europe and Ukraine remain on the sidelines, American and Russian negotiators take the right to discuss other people's land and security as if it were an exercise on a chessboard.

The draft, parts of which are circulating in Kyiv, contains demands that go far beyond anything seriously negotiated in recent years: territorial losses, a capped army, the renunciation of long-range weapons, and a veto against any international protection force. At the same time, Ukraine is to be permanently pushed to the margins of NATO. Even those states that could join the alliance only after the war are to be blocked in the future. While these points were being debated, 26 people died in Ternopil in a Russian missile strike. Amid the rubble, rescue workers searched for the missing. It is exactly this contrast - office negotiations in Washington while children are again being pulled from destroyed apartments in Ukraine - that further deepens mistrust in Kyiv.

At the same time, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, together with Kirill Dmitriev, a close Putin confidant, was involved in writing the peace proposal. Meanwhile, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll traveled to Kyiv with his own team to open another negotiation track. And Keith Kellogg is working as a third negotiator on yet another line. The result is a diplomatic jumble that leaves Kyiv and European capitals perplexed. No one knows who in Washington is actually setting the course - or whether anyone is keeping track at all.

A close adviser to Zelensky said he had received a clear assurance in Washington that they would first discuss a solution for Ukraine - and only then broader West-East issues. But now a paper lies on the table that mixes both and would have massive consequences for the European security order. Added to this is the fact that Trump’s draft goes even further than previously assumed. It would not only leave large parts of the Donbas to Russia but also those areas that Moscow never managed to fully occupy militarily. Such a step would not only be unconstitutional but politically not even remotely enforceable. It would divide Ukraine and topple the president.

On top of this comes another concession: Russia would be allowed to return to the group of leading industrial nations, while sanctions would be eased - despite Moscow continuing to attack cities. The foundational idea of the West that aggression does not deserve reward would thus collapse. Although the draft states that 100 billion euros in frozen Russian assets are to be released for the reconstruction of Ukraine, even European government officials see this less as reparations and more as an attempt to package a political price that weakens Ukraine and strengthens Russia.

Zelensky reacts cautiously. He knows he cannot afford to alienate the United States. But behind the scenes, concern is growing that Washington, after recent military setbacks, could increase pressure to force Kyiv into an imposed agreement. Europe, on the other hand, speaks openly. The Netherlands warns that without Ukraine no peace plan can hold. The Swedish foreign minister reminds that Moscow has not even shown the slightest sign of being willing to negotiate seriously. Instead, she calls for the release of Russian assets to increase pressure. At the same time, Russian Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov claims his troops have fully captured Kupiansk - a claim the Ukrainian General Staff immediately denies. This detail also shows how far apart the front lines are. How is a peace plan supposed to work if even the reality of the battlefields does not match? While confusion grows in Brussels and Kyiv, the Kremlin remains silent on key parts of the draft. Why should it move if the United States is willing to consider demands that Russia itself had almost written off as unattainable?

In the end, the picture is bleak: a state that has lived under Russian attacks for years and a continent that bears most of the costs are not at the table. Instead, Washington and Moscow negotiate about land, people, and political borders as if all of it belongs to them. It is an attempt to resolve a war by silencing its victims. And this is where the greatest danger lies: a peace without Ukraine - and without Europe - would not be one. It would be the beginning of the next crisis, not its end.