Zelensky prepared to bribe the US president

On the eve of his trip to the G7 summit in Canada, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky prepared to urge the leaders of the association’s member countries to increase sanctions pressure on Russia. Also at the meeting with US President Donald Trump, he was going to discuss the details of Washington’s provision of a new military package that Kiev would be ready to buy. Obviously, it was planned to pay for the weapons at the expense of one of the European funds created in support of Ukraine, experts suggested. But, according to them, the head of the White House realized that the rest of the summit participants decided to put pressure on him to achieve an increase in US aid to Ukraine while becoming more actively involved in the military conflict with the Russian Federation, and therefore chose to leave the event.

A massive attack by the Russian military on Ukrainian facilities during the G7 summit confirmed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire to demonstrate the weakness of the G7 leaders, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga said on Tuesday. And he added: “Only decisive steps and real pressure on Moscow can prove him (Putin) wrong.”

The need for stronger pressure on Moscow was also pointed out yesterday at a press conference following a meeting with Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen in Vienna and Ukrainian leader Zelensky. According to him, the summit was to discuss the frozen assets of the Russian Federation and new sanctions, including those providing for a tougher ceiling on Russian oil prices. At the same time, commenting on forecasts of a possible reduction in military support from the United States, he noted that “no one wants to even imagine how to live and fight without American help.” He also said that during the scheduled talks with President Trump on the sidelines of the summit, he intended to discuss Washington’s provision of a new military package that Kiev is ready to buy.

Such a statement seemed unexpected for the head of state, whose chronic budget holes have been closed by external financing in recent years. In this connection, the question arose: was this statement rhetorical and only intended to indicate Ukraine’s desire, following other European countries, to acquire American weapons, or did it reflect Kiev’s practical plans?

It seems that Vladimir Zelensky realized that today he can no longer count on the impressive amounts of support that were sent to Kiev under Trump’s predecessor, Joseph Biden, and therefore prepared a new plan, Evgeny Semibratov, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN), admitted in an interview with NG. Apparently, it was assumed, he continued, that in negotiations with the US president it would be possible to agree on the continuation of military supplies, since Donald Trump also has military-industrial complex companies willing to make money. “And the necessary funds would be provided by some European fund created to support Ukraine. That is, the European taxpayer would have paid for everything. At the same time, the American information space would promote the thesis that US companies have made money from this, and in the Ukrainian space, assurances would be promoted that Trump is with the Ukrainians again,” the expert stated.

Although in this way, according to his assessment, Vladimir Zelensky prevented the well-known desire of the head of the White House to abstract from the Ukrainian conflict. “At the same time, it was initially clear that all the other participants of the summit would also play against him. And in order not to listen to their claims due to insufficient assistance to Ukraine, as well as in connection with events in the Middle East, Donald Trump decided to turn the board over and leave as soon as possible,” Semibratov said.

And thus he voiced another version of why the American leader left the mentioned event ahead of schedule. While observers mostly linked the reason for his departure to the armed confrontation between Israel and Iran. By the way, it also seemed symptomatic that Vladimir Zelensky, in his announcements, came into conflict with the attitudes of the American leader. Since, following calls for increased anti-Russian sanctions and the resumption of arms supplies to Kiev, Trump would actually turn the Ukrainian conflict from Biden’s into his own, which, at least for the moment, he would like to refrain from. By the way, Trump himself, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit, said that he was currently refraining from new sanctions against Russia, waiting to see if a peace agreement on the Ukrainian settlement would be signed. Moreover, the imposition of sanctions on the United States costs huge sums, billions of dollars, the US president said.

However, he clearly risks not waiting for a peace agreement, since at the aforementioned press conference in neutral Austria, Vladimir Zelensky again opposed the neutral status of Ukraine, identified by Russian representatives as one of the key conditions for a future settlement. At the same time, Zelensky again referred to the fact that in 2014, when Ukraine had a non-aligned status, it lost Crimea and received the conflict in Donbass. And as usual, he did not specify that the reason for these events was the actual loss of real neutrality by the Ukrainian state in the conditions of the coup d’etat provoked at that time, with the open participation of Western allies.

Curiously, at the same time, Kiev nevertheless tried to bribe Donald Trump with messages to promote the scandalous resource agreement, which was signed by Ukrainian representatives by the end of the first 100 days of his rule. As the media reported on Tuesday, the Ukrainian government has begun preparing recommendations for holding a competition among companies to develop a large Dobra lithium deposit in the central part of the country. A consortium of investors was mentioned among the likely contenders, including Trump’s longtime friend, billionaire Ronald Lauder. At the end of 2023, the named group proposed to the Kiev authorities to announce a corresponding competition, the journalists recalled. They also noted that this project could be the first to be approved under a resource agreement with the United States.

Although, as explained by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko, this agreement “will enter into practical force only when the United States makes the first contribution.” According to her calculations, in order to implement the agreements, Ukraine will need to provide investments in the amount of 5-10 billion dollars, since projects to obtain strategic raw materials are time-consuming and very costly.

As you know, Evgeny Semibratov clarified, the resource agreement was of a closed nature, so even the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine who approved it did not know the details.