Donald Trump makes Ukraine an offer it can’t refuse
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. UKRAINIAN OFFICIALS are locked in talks with America whose brinkmanship is dizzying even by Donald Trump’s standards. He and his team are demanding Ukraine sign over profits from its mining, ports and other industries in return for any backing from Uncle Sam.
Speaking in Kyiv on February 23rd, after a night of crippling Russian drone attacks in the city, Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the “unfair" terms of the latest proposal and insisted that any agreement include military support. The talks are continuing. One question is how badly Ukraine is squeezed if there is a deal: an official says it is “not negotiation, but extortion".
The other is the retribution Mr Trump will inflict if Ukraine refuses to sign on the dotted line. There are growing fears in Kyiv that he might try to strangle the flow of military support, cut-off access to the Starlink satellite communications service, or accelerate his bilateral peace talks with Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian officials say their encounters with Mr Trump’s team are so confusing that they have been watching documentaries for clues about his negotiation style.
The only thing that is clear is the level of MAGA aggression. Since February 12th there have been three versions of a deal: a “bad" one, a “better" one, and a “disastrous" one, pushed by a rotating cast of interlocutors from Team Trump, some of them Wall Street types. The idea originated in September with the Ukrainians when Mr Zelensky offered to grant mineral rights in exchange for future security assistance and an invitation to NATO.
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