One hell of a weekend

Zelensky agreed to meet Putin

Good morning and welcome to your weekly briefing on the most important headlines concerning Ukraine.

Much of the past week revolved around the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. As Europe celebrated VE Day on May 8, Russia, as always, held its history-defying celebrations a day later. This year’s absurdities included Russians marching with pictures of Joseph Stalin through Washington, D.C., and a Russian choir concert at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York City.

With the remembrance formalities over, the weekend saw some of the most intensive public diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia in years.

Victory Day split-screen. Since 2023, Ukraine celebrates victory over Nazism on May 8, and Europe Day on May 9, in line with European traditions. In his May 8 address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky filmed himself walking through downtown Kyiv, speaking about the eight million Ukrainians who died in WWII, many of them at the front line. On May 9, diplomats from 35 countries, including the top EU leadership, visited Lviv to honor fallen Ukrainian soldiers. “In a family, both joys and hardships are shared,” EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas wrote on X.

In Moscow, Vladimir Putin watched Russia’s traditional military parade with a family of his own. Nearly three dozen world leaders attended — more than double last year’s guest list — including the Prime Minister of Slovakia (an EU member) and China’s Xi Jinping. The parade was a propaganda exercise to make the world afraid and the Russians proud. The warped memory of what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War is at the core of Russia’s national myth. It paints the Russians as heroes who unilaterally saved the world from evil Nazis, omitting that they also made a deal with those Nazis and kicked off WWII invading Poland with them. Before being taught better, I grew up knowing that "The Great Patriotic War” lasted from 1941 to 1945. For the Kremlin’s purposes, the first two years don’t matter.

Europe’s shaky ultimatum. On May 10, the leaders of Poland, the UK, France, and Germany arrived in Kyiv for a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, a group of countries working on a plan to deploy European troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire. Apart from the photo ops, obviously timed to Russia’s axis of evil reunion, there was also an attempt to get tough on Putin by issuing him an ultimatum: agree to a ceasefire by Monday or face new sanctions.

The Europeans sold it as a Trump-backed effort, but the first leader to react was Putin. In the middle of the night, he summoned a bunch of reporters into a room for an address, omitting the ultimatum and instead calling for direct talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul. Then, as if completely unaware of what happened, Trump took to Truth Social to write about “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!” and wanting to focus on “rebuilding and trade”, not the war. Twelve hours later, he pulled the rug out from the Europeans completely by calling on Ukraine to agree to the talks “IMMEDIATELY”, ceasefire or not, essentially siding with the Russian proposal.

Ritual dances. A hard truth about these peace negotiations is Ukraine’s lack of options, and on Sunday, that was in full display. “I will wait for Putin on Thursday in Turkey. Personally”, Zelensky wrote in a statement. “I hope this time the Russians won’t be looking for excuses why they can’t make it”.

I’ve seen mixed reactions to this move, with some calling it a sign of weakness and others a brilliant bluff. Zelensky is undercutting his own and European consensus that Russia must lay down arms to make the talks possible, but he is also challenging Putin to fly to Ankara and defy the Kremlin’s conviction that Zelensky is illegitimate and can’t be negotiated with. It’s all a part of the game both sides are playing — pulling Trump to their side by showing that their enemy is the real obstacle to peace. One Ukrainian analyst, Mykola Bieliesko, describes it as “ritual dances around the peace process in the name of Donald Trump”.

Here’s an easier truth: Russia will stop the war only when the cost of the fighting, or the punishment exerted for that fighting, begins to outweigh the potential gains of the fighting.

No amount of meetings in Ankara or elsewhere will change the fact that Russian and Ukrainian goals are inherently incompatible. The carrots instead of sticks won’t work with Putin. Even Trump seems to be realizing that Putin hates Ukraine too much for the American carrots to work.

Other stories I’m following…

From Militarnyi: Russia closes airspace over Kapustin Yar on May 12 and 1, which might indicate its intentions to launch Oreshnik, an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads whose payload and range are much larger than other Russian missiles. The US Embassy in Kyiv put out an alert on May 9 about “a potentially significant air attack…over the next several days.” Both the airspace closure and the US Embassy alert also happened ahead of Russia’s first Oreshnik strike on the city of Dnipro in November, though that strike caused minimal damage because the Russians reportedly used a dummy warhead.

From the Kyiv Independent: Amid missile shortage, Ukraine's air defenses are struggling under Russian ballistic attacks. Cities further away from the front line risk becoming more dangerous as American aid dries up. Ukraine has an outsized dependence on the US for air defense systems like the US-made Patriot.

From the Wall Street Journal: Trump Promised to End Two Wars Quickly. In Private, He Admits He’s Frustrated. Trump and his inner circle are finally realizing that Russians are “asking for too much”. Let me just gloat and say, on behalf of the Ukrainian people — We told you so.

Have a good week, everyone!

Cheers,

— Yours Ukrainian