“Ukraine should not give up anything it does not have to give up. What it has already lost, there is no remedy for that, but not what it has not lost, because Putin’s wolfish appetite is such that he is capable of devouring everything, and the next demand could be the Dnipro line or half of Kyiv,” Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, adviser to the President of the Republic of Poland, said on TV Republika when commenting on Russia’s plan to take Donbas from Ukraine.
On Sunday evening, Polish time, talks were held between Donald Trump and the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The subject was a peace agreement concerning the conflict in Ukraine.
“We have wonderful achievements. A 20-point peace plan is 90 percent agreed, security guarantees are agreed 100 percent, practically in the military dimension agreed 100 percent, and the prosperity plan is nearing completion,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference after the meeting.
Saryusz-Wolski: We have not moved closer to peace
Asked on TV Republika’s program “Pierwsza rozmowa dnia” (“The First Conversation of the Day”) about the conclusions of the talks, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski said that, in his view, “Vladimir Putin’s intention is not a peaceful settlement, whether temporary or long-term.”
“His goal is to subordinate all of Ukraine. It will probably have to come to the point where President Trump understands that he will gain nothing from Putin, and then a solution will emerge, but it will be a pro-Ukrainian solution,” he said.
Asked about the tangible achievements of the talks in Mar-a-Lago, he replied:
“We have moved closer to an agreement on the Washington-Kyiv line as regards these 20 points [of the peace plan], but we have not moved closer to peace. Incidentally, among these 20 points there is, something that escapes attention, point 7, whereby in the future act of agreement Russia and Ukraine decide on behalf of the EU that Ukraine will join the EU, and soon at that – Zelenskyy commented that it would be in two years. And that the EU will open its markets to Ukraine, this sounds surreal. This appears in a situation where Europeans are not participating in these negotiations, I am not talking about telephone conversations, and there is a complete forgetting that Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union states that the European Council must agree to the admission of a member and that this must be ratified by the governments of the states.”
On the matter of guarantees for Ukraine, Saryusz-Wolski said that “they will be important and binding only to the extent that Ukraine has a strong army.”
“If that is not the case, those guarantees will not arrive in time for the next Russian attack,” he added.
Should Ukraine give Donbas to Russia?
“It should not give up anything it does not have to give up. What it has already lost, there is no remedy for that, but not what it has not lost, because Putin’s wolfish appetite is such that he is capable of devouring everything, and the next demand could be the Dnipro line or half of Kyiv,” Saryusz-Wolski assessed.
“The President saves Poland’s honor”
After the talks concluded, the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, announced that the President had taken part in a teleconference with Trump, Zelenskyy, and European leaders, during which the state of the peace talks was discussed.
In the view of the President’s adviser, the presence of President Nawrocki in such situations “saves Poland’s honor.”
“However, let us have no illusions – the fundamental negotiations are taking place behind closed doors without Europeans. This also shows the great absentee, namely the current Polish government, and the inconsistency of what they are doing: on the one hand they say that foreign policy is their domain, and when the highest need arises for a Polish voice to be present there, they ask President Nawrocki to do it,” he pointed out.
“The conversation shows that all arrangements concerning peace and security in the region must be made among all interested parties. The determination of the American side and the unity of position of the European states give a real chance to end the war unleashed by the Russian Federation,” we read in a fragment of the Chancellery’s statement after the talks. According to Saryusz-Wolski, an element of European leaders’ policy is to “give this agreement a chance.”
Is such an agreement possible, however?
“It is not possible with Putin, but agreement between the two sides of the Atlantic – yes,” he replied.