When Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to America on August 18, 2025 to discuss the end of the war in Ukraine with President Donald Trump, he was joined at the meeting by French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Germany Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Finland President Alexander Stubb, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
They essentially recommended a negotiated peace with Russia by conceding nothing, and demanding that Russia surrender everything, while urging America to back “security guarantees” identical to NATO Article 5, with America providing air support to European NATO troops, and with NATO indefinitely arming Ukraine, paid for by the Europeans. They aren’t asking for freedom for Ukraine, they are demanding that Ukraine become an American protectorate.
Russia does not want NATO in Ukraine. Russia gave this as a justification for its invasion of Ukraine. Putin has indicated that any peacekeeping troops in Ukraine must come from non-NATO, neutral countries.
When Trump started his second term, the choices regarding Ukraine were to either abandon everything and get blamed for tanks in Kiev or continue the Biden policy and get blamed for tanks in Kiev. To his credit he decided to talk directly to the Russians; bypassing the Deep State foreign policy operatives, in an effort to end the war.
Nevertheless, the facts on the ground remain unchanged: there is no deal Trump can make with the Russians to end the war. Zelenskyy will never agree to any peace deal as that means the end of him. The nationalists in Ukraine will never accept a peace deal; they are the reason Zelenskyy cannot do a deal. The Europeans seem fearful that peace in Ukraine means the withdrawal of America from Europe, so they are fighting to keep the war.
Ukraine is a corrupt hellhole under Zelenskyy; however, Ukraine was already a corrupt hellhole before him. There are credible allegations that during the Obama regime, the-then Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, engaged in corrupt self-dealing in Ukraine. Joe Biden arranged a deal for his son at well-over three million dollars, to be on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, something Hunter Biden knows nothing about, while Joe Biden was running the Obama administration Ukraine policy and demanding that Ukraine fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
During that period, Russia attacked Ukraine. The Obama regime refused to help Ukraine as Russia took Crimea, despite being obligated to provide aid. The European leaders now crying about the desperate need to send military assistance to Ukraine denied such assistance for eight years.
Obama didn’t want to irritate Vladimir Putin; didn’t want to disappoint him. On an open mic, Obama was caught speaking to the-then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, “Tell Vladimir I’ll have more flexibility after I win reelection 2012”.
During the 2016 American presidential campaign, Ukraine officials actively attempted to undermine the Trump campaign. They worked with the Democrats, and the Obama regime’s Department of Justice and the FBI; helping to concoct the hoax that Trump was colluding with Russia, a false allegation which Robert Mueller investigated thoroughly but to no avail.
Nellie Ohr, a researcher at Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign opposition research arm that produced the bogus Steele Russian hoax dossier, testified in a 2018 House investigation that Fusion’s informants included Ukrainian parliamentarian Serhiy Leshchenko - an overt Hillary Clinton supporter.
In late 2018, a Ukrainian court found that Leshchenko and an official of Ukraine’s anti-corruption police interfered in the 2016 American election, including leaking information damaging to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort - who was forced to resign. Leshchenko was reportedly also a source for Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-born Democrat National Committee consultant and Hillary Clinton supporter.
Furthermore, during the 2024 American presidential campaign, Zelenskyy came to America to campaign actively for Kamala Harris. Now, Trump is President again and he knows that Ukraine is a corrupt place dependent on US aid.
Trump does not want to fund a regime that won't reform itself, a regime that attempted to undermine his campaign now eagerly hoping for NATO Article 5-like “security guarantees” with America providing “air support”, and official recognition as an American “ally”.
Well before President Trump took office for his second term, Macron was trying to disrupt Trump in peace negotiations. Macron and Starmer manipulated President Trump to meet with Zelenskyy at the Vatican before attending Pope Francis' funeral, to get American weapons and intelligence for Ukraine.
While leading Democrats and European leaders have been cheering the war on and sending hundreds of billions of their taxpayers hard-earned money to Ukraine for the war, with no end in sight, President Trump has been relentlessly pushing for peace. Leaders in America or in Europe were not even talking about peace between Russia and Ukraine until President Trump was reelected. The Europeans also made clear that they would never agree to peace without the total surrender of Russia.
The last round of talks stalled over the conditions required to create a Black Sea ceasefire. After Ukraine and the EU rejected the terms required to create the ceasefire, Putin spoke at a meeting of Russian industrialists where he told them that despite talks with Washington, they should not expect the end of sanctions. The new understanding is for the Russian economy to operate independently of the West; operating within the framework of BRICS. This indicated to the Trump administration that ending sanctions was not a carrot and new sanctions are not a stick.
Moreover, in response to a question at a public event about the Trump effort to end the Ukraine war, Putin also said there will not be a Minsk 3. This referred to prior deals with the West over Ukraine. Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 were efforts to trick and humiliate Russia by the West. Russia was to get trapped Western advisors in the war zone free of the Donbas militias in exchange for a peace deal that never materialized. Meanwhile the West just poured more weapons into Ukraine.
Putin said the Russian army is ready to finish off the Ukrainian army; a bold statement, out of character for Putin. Previously, he had spoken of a five- or ten-year war. For him to talk about a quick end of the war suggests that the Ukrainian army is in far worse shape than is being reported.
Putin also suggested that the post-war process should start with the removal of the Zelenskyy regime and placing Ukraine’s administration into the hands of the UN. Meanwhile, Europe wants Trump to make demands on Russia.
European leaders demand more American weapons for Ukraine, although America under the Biden administration burned through its stockpiles. And Ukraine is running out of men. They want Trump to start with air support over Ukraine that will inevitably lead to sending in American troops to confront Russia. They also demand that Trump impose more sanctions on Russia - that already has max sanctions and is doing quite well trading with India and China. Both China and India have refused Trump’s demand to stop trading with Russia.
Russia has a large industrial capacity, especially when China, Iran and North Korea are included. The Russian army is larger than at the start of the war. On the battlefront, Russia has broken through the Ukrainian lines and the Ukrainian army looks close to collapse.
European leaders seem so desperate for war with Russia. They pushed for a war on their borders after arming and training Nationalists in Ukraine for years and pitted them against Russia, a nuclear power and neighbor. They recently formed a “Coalition of the willing”; however, none of these countries have an army capable of fighting beyond their borders and many could not defend themselves against a well-armed militia. Europe has relied on the American military for so long most have forgotten how to fight.
The Russians want Ukraine as a demilitarized, deradicalized neutral state with no connection to NATO. They won’t get that at the bargaining table. They could only get that on the battlefield. Ukraine cannot reclaim all of its territory. American politicians and European leaders claiming otherwise are only inspiring more bloodshed.
Trump should end American involvement in the Ukraine war and let Europe handle the mess. Zelenskyy and the European leaders cannot be trusted to end the war. The end of the Ukraine war will be determined on the battlefield.
Dr. Sheyin-Stevens is a Registered Patent Attorney based in Florida, USA. He earned his Doctorate in Law from the University of Miami.