PARIS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will face domestic dissent if he shrinks today from telling Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull his troops from eastern Ukraine, former NATO Ambassador Kurt Volker said.
“There are forces in Ukraine ready to protest in the streets if they perceive any softening on the government’s insistence on Russian withdrawal,” Volker, the State Department’s former lead negotiator for the war in Ukraine, wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner.
Volker issued that warning as Zelensky huddled with Putin at the Elysee Palace, the official residence of French President Emmanuel Macron, in their first face-to-face meeting. The encounter once brought the hope of a breakthrough in the war in Ukraine, but pro-Western analysts and central European leaders now worry that Zelensky, damaged by the impeachment controversy in the United States, negotiates from a weakened position.
“Just returning from a small, senior-level policy conference in Slovakia — striking how the prevailing assessment is that Russian President Putin is extremely comfortable with the U.S. out of the equation, and that President Zelensky is facing enormous pressure,” Volker wrote to the Washington Examiner.
“The hope is that the Normandy meeting produces further disengagement of forces in selected areas, a more meaningful implementation of the ceasefire, and possibly movement on a further prisoner exchange,” Volker said. “The risk, however, is that Russia will press for holding local elections in the occupied territories — and therefore implementation of special status — without actually withdrawing its forces or dismantling the so-called Peoples’ Republics.”
The meeting between Putin and Zelensky is closely being watched in Ukraine. On Sunday, thousands of protesters marched in Kyiv, carrying Ukrainian flags and urging Zelensky not to cross “red lines” at the summit.
In the days leading up to the summit, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweeted in Ukrainian, urging “no capitulation” and listing demands. “Do not trust Putin,” he reportedly wrote. “Never and in nothing.” He warned his successor that Putin will use “KGB-style manipulations, flattery, and play on the president’s emotions and flaws.”
Zelensky may be tempted to agree to hold elections while Russian forces are present, trusting that his popularity will help him overcome any Kremlin vote-rigging, Volker said, but such an action would be perceived in Ukraine as caving to Putin.
“I think that President Zelensky and his team know this and can avoid that risk,” Volker said.
If not, the warning remains: Ukrainians stand ready to march in the streets.
