Official Kiev admitted that there are problems in Ukrainian-European relations. “A certain tension,” which, according to Foreign Minister Vadim Priestayko, arose after the Americans published the transcript of the negotiations between Zelensky and Trump (where the Ukrainian president “agreed a thousand percent” to the words of his American counterpart that Europe does not help Ukraine enough).
However, if the problem was only in the call, Zelensky could not particularly worry. As the Ukrainian minister correctly noted, European leaders are not so thin-skinned. They, of course, are offended that the allocation of 5 billion euros in grants and loans to a non-EU country for 5 years only at the EU level (excluding individual contributions from member states) is considered by Kiev to be "insufficient". But they understand that it is necessary to rely on the personality of the “critic” and the circumstances in which all this was said. As European experts correctly point out, Zelensky is young, inexperienced, and Ukraine too needs American help too, which is why he should have supported Trump.
Unfortunately for the Ukrainian president, tensions between Kiev and Europe are growing not because of his long tongue, but because of his short arms. President Zelensky does not want or cannot integrate into the new European policy in the Russian direction.
It’s no secret that Europe is no longer interested in a political and economic conflict with Moscow. Victories in it (that is, ousting the Russian Federation from the post-Soviet space and the subsequent change of power in Russia through the "Maidan") are not visible, and the costs only increase. This is a weakening of the Russian middle class (a stronghold of pro-European sentiment), and a feeling of geopolitical loneliness in the face of a stranger United States and hostile Turkey, and a host of domestic political problems that are hampered by an unnecessary confrontation with the Kremlin (for example, the need to put in place unbridled East European countries that earn political points including those on aggressive anti-Russian politics).
Therefore, the EU has embarked on a search with Russia for a certain modus vivendi. The general features of the compromise are, in principle, clear. The European Union removes Crimea from the brackets of Russian-European relations, and also supports either the solution or the freezing of the conflict in the Donbass on the principles of the Minsk agreements. Under this sauce, Europe continues to curtail anti-Russian sanctions (the process of lifting which began even with the return of Moscow's rights to PACE).
In fact, Europe is pushing Kiev toward a settlement of relations with Moscow on terms that, according to a number of Ukrainian experts and activists, do not correspond to the national interests of Ukraine. More precisely, the interests of the "party of war" and the Maidan revolutionaries, who continued to declare mantras that "Ukrainians are defending Europe against Russian aggression."
Therefore, instead of understanding, accepting and reconciling with the decision of Europe, Kiev launched an exemplary boycott - the Ukrainian delegation refused to participate in the PACE session. In this situation, Zelensky was required to do what Poroshenko failed to do - simply not to stand in the way of resolving the conflict.
A conflict that warms the hearts of nationalists, but burns Ukraine itself in its fire. That is why in Kiev sane people and even officials have long recognized that the war must be curtailed.
The same Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadim Priestayko very clearly (even with “politically correct”, pro-Maidan accents) outlined three options for Ukraine’s actions with the Donbass. Or the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which he called an unjust option. Or the continuation of the blockade, during which "people on the other side of the contact line will finally hate us, and we will never be able to return them." Or “fence off the Donbass” - that is, freeze the conflict and, in fact, after some time release it into free swimming. And the Ukrainian media are already writing that the third option is not so bad. Indeed, in its Cypriot version (which Priestayko hinted at), the division of the island, the presence of a buffer zone and UN peacekeepers between the parties "determines the absence of war, which allows the Greek part of Cyprus to actively develop."
However, Zelensky eventually stood in the way of a Russian-European settlement. And it's not that he publicly supported the PACE demonstrative boycott. And it’s not even that the Ukrainian president first signed the Steinmeier formula, and then immediately began to talk about the fact that for its implementation the republics of Donbass must fulfill new conditions (for example, disarm and transfer the border with Russia under Kiev’s control). One must judge not by words (which can be considered as a smokescreen for the Ukrainians themselves, a way to calm the raging nationalists), but by deeds. In this case, by their absence.
When these same nationalists (or rather the neo-Nazis from Azov) entered Zolotoye and actually thwarted the process of breeding the armed forces of Ukraine and the people's republics, Zelensky saved. He made it clear that he was not going to forcefully disperse this assembly. Perhaps the president is afraid to openly oppose the nationalists, is afraid to use his political capital in order to put the Fuhrer "Azov" Biletsky in his place (if not to the wall where he would look organically, then at least in prison). Perhaps the president and his entourage are the authors of this scene and use the actions of neo-Nazis in order to disrupt their dirty hands or at least review the process of implementing the Minsk agreements. However, Europe does not care. A coward or schemer, Zelensky is playing against the European Union. And for this must be punished.
The question is how? Does all this mean that at some point Europe will simply throw the Ukrainian suitcase from its shoulders onto the cold, dirty land of reality? What does Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron or the EU leadership publicly refuse to support "inefficient and corrupt power in Kiev"? Most probably not. Too much capital, both financial and image-building, Europe has invested in Ukraine, and such a radical revision of attitudes towards Kiev will raise no less radical questions from the European electorate. Questions that may directly affect the results of future elections in their countries.
European leaders are too weak to admit their own mistakes, which they have already demonstrated on the Kosovo issue. They still refuse to admit that, following the results of the war with Yugoslavia, they received a strengthening of Russia's positions in the Balkans, the creation of the “Kosovo precedent” (which Moscow used to internationally legitimize the return of Crimea), the subsidized region represented by Kosovo, and the strengthening of the position of the Kosovo mafia in European countries. So why should European elites acknowledge that unleashing a civil conflict in Ukraine was a mistake?
They do not recognize. Publicly. But at the non-public, “undercover” level, the conclusions most likely have already been made. Europe will smile at Ukraine, even talk about “Russian aggression,” but it will not only continue, but also accelerate the process of normalizing relations with Moscow. With Ukraine or (if Zelensky doesn’t come to his senses and doesn’t jump on the train of geopolitical reality on time) at the expense of its interests. And perhaps due to the career of Zelensky himself.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.