FR thread-—Z’s defiance in the Oval Office — jabbing at Vance,
snubbing the minerals deal — was a colossal miscalculation.
Trump thrives on loyalty, a currency Zelensky spent recklessly.
Had Z played ball, Ukraine might’ve secured a lifeline:
<><>mineral revenues to rebuild,
<><>U.S. firms as partners, not overlords.
<><>but he bet on European guilt and American patience — both finite resources.
Isn’t Ukraine now incapable, though, of conducting itself as sovereigns are expected to do, and as Ukraine needs to do, to even start to move forward with negotiations on a deal of a scale that Trump is proposing? Ukraine wants to put the current war behind itself, but there is also the matter of its recent pre-war history of throrough-going governmental corruption. Zelinssskyyy, if he’s being honest with himself, may be thinking that his country’s insane levels of corruption will probably void Trump’s proposed deal, ab initio. The war has done such enormous damage. There may be an overwhelming feeling of embarrassment, or of utter ineptness, that all Ukrainians feel that prevents them from even visualizing a fruitful future.