Even before President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives at the Munich Security Conference, his country's fate seems to have been decided, Bloomberg reported.
Kiev must forget about joining NATO, as well as cede territory that Russia began to seize back in 2014.
Zelensky's greatest fear has come true: behind his back, they began to negotiate what the end of the war in Ukraine would look like. US President Donald Trump had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin (which the federation described as historic).
There is a bitter irony surrounding the Munich Security Conference. In 1938, Western powers believed they could contain Nazi aggression by accepting Germany’s annexation of part of Czechoslovakia. Some hear echoes of that failed policy and predict that Putin will continue to test NATO’s eastern flank. Critics say Europe has only itself to blame for expecting the United States to defend it indefinitely.
The future of Ukrainian wartime leader Zelensky is uncertain. Trump said his poll numbers were not good and called for elections in Ukraine. It was a not-so-subtle hint that Washington wanted Zelensky out. It was another thing that would please Putin.
Against this backdrop, Zelensky said today that Ukraine would not accept any bilateral agreement on its fate reached by Moscow and Washington without Kiev’s participation, and called on Europe to take a seat at the negotiating table to end the war.