LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For a Ukrainian perspective on the proposed new peace deal, we've called up Hanna Shelest. She's an analyst with the Foreign Policy Council's Ukrainian Prism think tank, and she joins us now from Odesa. Hanna, thank you for being on the program.
HANNA SHELEST: Thank you for the invitation.
FADEL: So is this a deal Ukraine could accept?
SHELEST: First of all, let's be honest and stop calling this a peace deal because when we read those 28 points that have been presented in the media, there is nothing about peace over there. There is a certain deal, and this deal is more U.S.-Russian. But I don't see where is Ukraine there because if the U.S. side is saying that both sides need to make a compromise - so I'm reading these 28 points and trying to find at least one thing what Russia is doing to stop their unprecedented aggression.
FADEL: Now, this isn't the first time Washington and Moscow have negotiated a deal like this without input from Ukraine or from Europe. Why do you think this keeps happening?
SHELEST: I think that the Russians are definitely trying to demonstrate each time when the situation is not good for them, and this time, we're in the new wave of the sanctions against their biggest oil companies and the successful strikes of Ukrainian Armed Forces against their refineries. So under these conditions, Russians always call for the negotiations, and they are finding the atmosphere where they think that Ukraine is weak. So they consider that the current domestic crisis is something that would make Ukraine suddenly surrender. Because this plan is about surrender and capitulation. I don't see any changes in the main conditions compared to what they asked in spring 2022, or even two weeks ago, when President Trump very strongly said that what Russia demands is just nonsense.
FADEL: Now, you're saying this is surrender. This is capitulation. Ukraine cannot accept this deal. Is there anything in it that is appealing to you?
SHELEST: As for now, no accept of the process of negotiations because even if you read attentively the points about the reconstruction of Ukraine, the fact that you are taking Ukrainian resources, Ukrainian land and from this, you will pay for the Ukrainian reconstruction, honestly, it's like I've been robbed and I need to pay the robber for, like, to return back my stuff. And I don't see the Europe there. I see even the phrase about security guarantees is something like it would be discussed later. But please tell me what it is in the security guarantees because Ukraine already had certain obligations, according to the Budapest Memorandum, for example, or others that have been promised to Ukraine. But nothing happened. So without details of what does mean security guarantees for us, even this point cannot be appealing.
FADEL: OK. So Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will negotiate with President Trump on this peace plan. But if there's nothing appealing in the plan for Ukraine, is this all a nonstarter? I mean, where does it go from here?
SHELEST: You know, when I read the Ukrainian version, it sounds like we are ready for the negotiations with Mr. Trump, but not about the particular point. So it is a little bit of this, like, you know, same line of what exactly we're going to negotiate. One important thing is that Ukraine is definitely ready for negotiations. We have been ready since the Day 1. President Zelenskyy arrived in Istanbul a few months ago, if you remember, for the direct talks with Mr. Putin when the Russian president was too afraid to travel there. So Ukrainians are ready to speak, and we definitely don't want to be in the trap of the Russian narrative that it is them who are ready for negotiations and Ukrainians are just rejecting.
FADEL: That was Hanna Shelest. She's the director of security programs of the Foreign Policy Council's Ukrainian Prism think tank.
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