Kyiv hits Russian oil to gain leverage as Trump’s peace push loses steam — NV special

26 May, 04:00 PM

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (Photo: Getty Images)

Trilateral talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine “have not been fruitful,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged on May 22, offering Washington’s bluntest admission yet that the process has stalled.

Washington does not want to waste its efforts, Rubio said.

“If we see an opportunity to organize talks that will be productive rather than counterproductive, and that have a chance to be fruitful, we are prepared to take on that role,” he said.

Two days earlier, on May 20, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported, citing sources, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked the United Kingdom, France and Germany to revive the E3 format and use it for peace talks. Diplomats cited by the newspaper said Ukraine believes the United States will no longer be an effective mediator.

The last contacts among the trilateral group — Kyiv, Washington and Moscow — took place back in February. There has been no progress since.

In March, Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged that Ukraine had stopped receiving signals about talks because of the fighting in the Middle East.

Russian officials later said the trilateral group’s work had been paused — and even that Russia was pulling out of the talks until Ukraine began withdrawing troops from northern Donetsk Oblast.

Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of Ukraine’s parliamentary national security committee and a lawmaker from Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, said peace talks are still underway, just at a slower pace.

“Direct contacts between the Ukrainian and Russian sides are not taking place today, but they are continuing with the help of our American partners,” Venislavskyi said. “I know talks are underway with representatives of President Donald Trump, and they are communicating with the Russian side.”

Venislavskyi said Ukraine is mainly in contact with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Changed circumstances

Hanna Shelest, head of international security programs at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, describes the trilateral talks as “on pause.”

Several factors have frozen the public negotiation track.

One is obvious: The White House, previously the main engine behind the talks, is now focused on Iran.

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which began in February and continues, caused the talks to miss the window when some results could have been reached, Shelest said.

“The talks that were taking place then through U.S. mediation, when a meeting in the Emirates was expected — that was exactly the moment when the preparations should have turned into at least some meeting and some agreements,” Shelest said. “Because that did not happen then, we moved backward.”

“Talks require a stalemate moment, when everyone understands that either both sides are very strong or both are very weak,” Shelest said. “And they need to sit down and talk.”

In her view, there is no stalemate now. Washington is preoccupied with Iran, while Kyiv and Moscow both believe they can still achieve something before sitting down at the table.

Another problem behind the pause runs deeper, though it is hardly surprising.

“Peace talks are now deadlocked because Putin is unwilling to seek compromise,” said Yehor Cherniev, deputy head of Ukraine’s parliamentary national security committee, a Servant of the People lawmaker and head of Ukraine’s permanent delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Russia is now receiving additional revenue from the Middle East confrontation through higher oil prices and weaker sanctions, so the Kremlin no longer feels the need for a pause in the war as it did in winter. Ukraine, meanwhile, has launched a successful campaign of long-range strikes inside Russia, improving its own position.

Cherniev said Russia always speaks in ultimatums and treats peace agreements as the fulfillment of its own demands. Ukraine, he said, will not meet Moscow’s demands and will not surrender Donbas.

“The only problem in the talks is Putin’s unwillingness to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and serious negotiations aimed at results, not at imitating a negotiation process,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, another Servant of the People lawmaker and chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “Putin does not want peace. Because in his mind, peace or a truce is a threat to his power.”

Cherniev said Ukraine was never “enchanted” by the Trump-initiated talks and understood from the start whom it was dealing with — and that Russia never fulfills its commitments.

“Unfortunately, we are more disappointed by the position of the United States, which has significant leverage over the Russian Federation but is not using it for reasons understood only by President Trump’s administration,” Cherniev said.

At the same time, he said the United States now has less influence over Kyiv, in part “because it has reduced its assistance to Ukraine.”

Merezhko said Trump wants a quick and easy victory so he can say he is a peacemaker who stopped another war.

“But for some reason, Trump still does not want to acknowledge the main thing: The only obstacle to peace is Putin. And he must be spoken to from a position of strength to achieve at least something,” Merezhko said.

Keeping Ukraine on course — and Trump at the table

All sides now understand they should not count on a concrete result from the talks. But even “talks for the sake of talks” matter, Merezhko said.

Ukraine’s task, he said, is to make sure Trump at least stays in the process and does not lose interest. Better still, he said, would be for Trump to return to his original idea: first an unconditional ceasefire, then negotiations.

Cherniev said the situation is now working in Ukraine’s favor. With help from European partners, Ukraine is gaining strength, while Russia is gradually weakening under economic strain. Although Russia’s oil revenues have risen, Ukraine is also cutting into Moscow’s ability to collect that windfall.

“Strikes on oil refineries, ports and terminals, going after tankers — all of this significantly reduces the ability to sell that oil,” Cherniev said. “These are, in fact, our sanctions.”

“In this way, we are improving our negotiating position,” he said.

According to Reuters estimates, Ukrainian drone strikes have forced nearly all of the largest refineries in central Russia to either fully halt or sharply reduce fuel production. That is roughly a quarter of Russia’s total refining capacity.

“There is no doubt that Putin wants to continue this war. But to do that, he needs the ability to continue it. So, with our long-range sanctions, together with European sanctions, together with the European Union’s assistance and the allocation of EUR 90 billion to us, we are bringing closer the moment when the Russian Federation, I think, will still face economic difficulties in continuing to wage the war,” Cherniev said.

Shelest said Kyiv now needs to show Washington that Russia is weak and that Ukraine’s Armed Forces can hit distant targets on Russian territory. In other words, the war is “coming home to Russia,” while Ukraine is not only improving its own capabilities but also securing as much support as possible from European partners, especially in the defense industry.

Venislavskyi said the rhetoric from Putin’s regime is already changing, with the Kremlin increasingly weighing the need to stop the war. In his view, Kyiv may soon see more concrete signs of that “understanding” and more constructive proposals from Moscow for a truce.

“Over the next two or three weeks, by mid-June, the direction in which we are moving should become much clearer,” Venislavskyi said.

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