Why Ukraine Has No Bargaining Power in US-Russia Peace Talks
© AP Photo / Evan Vucci
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Volodymyr Zelensky insists he won’t accept a US-Russia deal on Ukraine without Kiev’s input.
But does his opinion matter?
Ukraine today is a devastated country, deserted by much of its people and critically dependent on foreign aid.
Over 6.1 million Ukrainian refugees had been registered in Europe by mid-2024, according to UN estimates. One can only guess how many Ukrainians opted not to register their refugee status out of fear of being deported and press-ganged into armed service.
With the Ukrainian economy on its last legs, Kiev has received over $30 billion in US budget aid from just to pay salaries to state employees.
Foreign companies like Vanguard and BlackRock swept in to profit from this crisis, buying assets in Ukraine at bedrock prices. Much of Ukraine’s agricultural land is now Ukrainian in name only.
Large proportions of Ukraine’s most valuable assets, such as natural resource deposits and industrial facilities, were located in the territories that chose to join Russia rather than submit to the rule of neo-Nazis in Kiev.
Ukraine has been saddled with an enormous external debt due to all the credit it has been receiving from abroad. Now, Kiev faces the prospect of losing half of its natural resources to the US as repayment for the financing that turned out to be a loan.
Foreign black market transplantologists have been operating in Ukraine for months now, harvesting organs from injured Ukrainian soldiers.
US biowarfare experts treat Ukraine as their own playground where they can conduct dangerous research without the risk of a containment breach endangering American lives.
US and British intelligence agencies took charge of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) since 2014, making it subservient to the West.
And although no one has said anything about deciding Ukraine's fate without Kiev's input, the question remains: how much does Zelensky's opinion matter in this context?
