Friday’s Oval Office blowup does no one any good, maybe not even Vladimir Putin. It’s up to, first, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and then President Trump to get the peace plan back on track.
Zelensky must swallow his pride, apologize, say he’s grateful for the American people and Trump’s desire to end the slaughter. Then say it again and again, as many times as necessary.
Trump needs to accept the apology and get the minerals deal signed, then proceed to foster a Kyiv-Moscow accord that serves both sides’ interests going forward, as well as those of the United States and the larger West.
At this point, the only real winner if the Ukraine war continues is China’s Xi Jinping — who gets to have Russia grow even more dependent on him while the West burns resources holding off the Kremlin’s forces.
By the way, US Democrats and European leaders have a duty here, too: Shut up.
Don’t try to exploit this mess to serve domestic US political ends, nor to shine the Eurocrats’ self-regarding contempt for Trump: Remember, they laughed off his public first-term warning against becoming more dependent on the Kremlin’s energy exports.
Without diving into pointless blame games, we’ll note that the blowup was a two-sided production.
Somebody at the White House decided it was smart to have Trump, Zelensky and Veep JD Vance chatting publicly in advance of signing the deal.
Trump raised the reality of the hatred Zelensky has for Putin, then seemed to equate it with how “the other side” sees him.
He was talking about how hard that made it to reach any peace deal, but the Ukrainian couldn’t stop himself from starting to outline the very real reasons Putin can’t be trusted, etc.
The Russian autocrat, after all, has kidnapped thousands of children and killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians in a war he started.
Vance didn’t help by suggesting that the problem was people were more interested in “chest thumping” than diplomacy.
And it snowballed from there.
But here’s the thing about diplomacy: You don’t need to like someone to make a deal. That not only goes for Putin and Zelensky, but for Trump and Zelensky.
You do what’s best for your country, not your personal pride; get it done, gentlemen.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
