There’s more to it than that - what he is offering in exchange for him stepping down will guarantee that Russia will stop fucking them. Acceptance into NATO would have stopped Russian aggression from the start. He’s been asking for it almost from the beginning for exactly this reason. I don’t believe it will happen, so I don’t believe he will be stepping down. My opinion is that it’s one of that the statement was meant more defiantly and deliberately: I will step down if and when I can be assured of future peace for my country.
IIRC he didn’t even really wanna be President. So this is prolly a win/win for him in a lot of ways if him just stepping down is able to get Ukraine into NATO.
No way they’re gonna give up half the mineral rights in Ukraine. It just plain won’t happen.
It’s only a win/win if he believes his country will be in good hands because unlike Trump he actually gives a shit about his country
I mean yeah, I agree with that.
Just give up the mineral rights to all minerals in the Donbas. Tell Trump: “You get as many minerals as your weapons help retake. If Russia is ceded the entirety of the Donbas, you get nothing.”
Not something I’m a fan of for multiple reasons.
One is that Zelinsky is making the same mistake that Trump routinely makes: Making concessions before even sitting at the negotiating table, eliminating your own leverage. Why should Russia offer any concessions to secure his resignation when he’s already said he’s willing to resign? No reason for them to give him anything if he’s willing to concede that for free.
The second is simple. Zelinsky blinked. Never mind giving an inch and Trump taking a yard – once you give so much as a micrometer to Trump, he believes the rest of the entire light-year is his by birthright and will never let it go. He will portray this in the media as Zelinsky conceding that he is an “illegitimate dictator” and will use this as support for the US supporting Russia’s demands for his removal.
Zelinsky is also saying he may be forced to give up half the mineral rights in his country. Again, making this statement public is a huge win for both Trump and Russia as it essentially takes another point of negotiation off the table, while also validating Trump’s belief that Ukraine is barely even a third wheel in their own peace talks. Those mineral rights and Zelinksy stepping down could have extracted enormous concessions that could have included Ukraine getting their land back, joining NATO, creating a NATO-managed DMZ, or any number of other things. But instead, Ukraine giving up half its minerals and Zelinsky stepping down are now simply a given and where negotiations are going to start, not where they’re going to end.
And look, I fully admit that in the end, Ukraine may not have much of a choice here. I’m not saying I like the idea, but at a geopolitical level, Trump is right in saying that Ukraine really does have little to say about its own future. With Trump in office, Ukraine really does have little to no real negotiating power here, and Zelinksy may simply be acknowledging the reality of the situation and taking the least bad option. But if Zelinsky wants any shot at even having a seat at the table, he needs to at least keep up the appearance that he’s intending to keep fighting. Rolling over and playing dead will only reinforce Trump’s belief that Ukraine’s minerals are his, Russia’s statements that the war is justified to remove an ‘illegitimate’ leader, and both of their beliefs that Zelinksy needs to just sit at the kiddie table like a good little boy and let the adults handle things.