The fateful 10 percent

Fate Ukraine i Europe it is hidden in ten percent and two details.

In his New Year's message, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he and Donald Trump agreed on 90 percent of the peace plan to stop the war, which is entering its fourth year, but that there is no solution to two issues: the territories and Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye, which is now under Moscow's control.

Russian occupation troops hold about a fifth of Ukrainian land, although their military initiative, which began in 2024, did not achieve significant breakthroughs last year, even at the cost of large human casualties. By November, the Russians were occupying an average of 455 square kilometers per month. Moscow currently controls about 75 percent of Donetsk and 99 percent of neighboring Luhansk, two industrial areas known collectively as Donbas. What his army has so far failed to achieve on the front, Vladimir Putin wants as a spoil of war - the entire Donbass.

We believe in you and your victory", Putin told his soldiers, hinting that he is ready to fight for at least another year, as long as Moscow needs to achieve its goals at the pace of its current conquests.

In the last six months, the Russians have broken the Ukrainian front east of Donetsk, north of Kharkiv and east of Zaporozhye. On top of that, about 70 percent of Ukraine's energy structure was destroyed, so hundreds of thousands of people are without electricity and heating for several hours every day. Total damages so far are estimated at 800 billion dollars.

The Russian economy is surprisingly being held down by Western sanctions and the costs of war. Although revenues from oil and gas, which fill almost a quarter of the state coffers, fell by 34 percent in November, the Russian economy continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace. The IMF estimate for 2025 is a growth of 0,6 percent. Russia recruits about 30.000 new soldiers per month, significantly more than Ukraine, whose forces at the front are increasingly tired because there are no replacements. A realistic assessment is that the Ukrainians are holding off the Russian advance as much as possible, hoping for a solution, but the problem for Kiev is that until Putin gets most of what he is asking for, he has no reason to stop fighting.

Based on the development of the situation during 2025, Ukraine is weakened but not defeated. Counterstrikes by Ukrainian missiles and drones are causing extensive damage to Russia's military industry, weapons factories, ammunition depots, refineries and fuel depots. Three Russian generals were killed in assassinations last year.

All of this further inflames Putin's ambitions for the "special military operation" to be completed victoriously. If the "denazification" of the regime in Kiev and the installation of a pro-Russian government cannot, then the gains must be territorial. Putin claims that the entire Donbas will belong to Russia by grace or by force.

DIPLOMATIC MARATHON

Surrendering territories is not an option for Kyiv. "We want the end of the war, but not the end of Ukraine," repeats Zelensky, opposing Putin's maximalist demand, but also Trump, who constantly pressures him to accept territorial concessions and repeats that the war over Ukraine will end with the loss of part of the territory. Ukraine does not want peace "at any cost", retorts Zelensky, who, unlike Trump, does not trust Putin.

The problem is in those 10 percent. As well as the fate of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the one in Zaporizhia. Since March 2022, Russia placed this power plant on the banks of the Dnieper under its military control, six reactors do not produce electricity and Ukraine provides energy to ensure minimal functioning.

Trump's plan envisages a compromise solution: that the power plant, with significant investments, be managed by a joint American-Ukrainian company. Fifty percent of the generated electricity would go to Ukraine, and the rest would be distributed by the USA. And while Kiev wants the entire area to be demilitarized and turned into a free economic zone, such a plan is unacceptable to Moscow, which wants to include the power plant in the Russian energy network.

Despite everything, Trump and Zelensky concluded the recent "great" meeting in Florida with the conclusion that they are "very close" to an agreement. The reduced Trump plan, which was reduced from 28 to 20 points, respects some demands of Ukraine and Europeans: there are no restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and the types of weapons, there is no lifting of American sanctions against Russia, which Washington would gradually ease only after the end of the war.

They announced that 95 percent of the issue of guarantees of Ukrainian security in the event of repeated Russian aggression has been agreed upon. The US offers guarantees for 15 years (Zelensky wants 50) based on the principle of point 5 of the NATO Charter - an attack on one member is an attack on all, but many details of implementation are not clear enough.

We are attending a diplomatic marathon over a shortened version of Trump's plan. Allies praise him as "productive and constructive". The provisions of the agreement respect some demands of Kiev and the Europeans, ensure greater American involvement in Ukraine, but it is almost certain that Putin will reject them.

Moscow's proposed economic zones in the Donbass are unacceptable. As well as the presence of peacekeeping troops from about thirty countries of the "coalition of the willing". Russia has already announced that any foreign force will be their legitimate target.

There is no result that would bring the positions of Moscow and Kyiv closer together. The Russians announce that they will request significant changes to the draft peace plan, arguing that the current proposal does not meet their core interests. They soon proved it by sticking to long-written KGB scripts.

As soon as news of the convergence of US and Ukrainian positions arrived, the Kremlin threatened to revise its negotiating position. The occasion was an attack by Ukrainian drones on Putin's private residence on Lake Valdai, in northwestern Russia. Kiev strongly denied it, but the message was addressed to Trump: we will undermine you, we will tighten the position, so there is nothing to be gained from the agreement.

Ukraine does not have favorable military options, but there are some on the financial front. While Washington is suspending ammunition deliveries, the EU has provided Kiev with a loan of 90 billion euros, which will help to continue the country's defense until the end of 2027 with the current intensity of warfare.

photo: ap photo

AND WHERE IS EUROPE??

Is it the announcement of a new clinch of transatlantic allies? When the details of Trump's peace plan became public in November, Ukrainians and Europeans were shocked by how many concessions the American president was willing to make to Russia.

The Western alliance, built for eight decades, has never been in such a crisis. No post-war American administration has treated European allies as condescendingly as Trump's. The consequences will be long-term, just like the conflict between the European Union and Russia.

European leaders made many concessions in order not to anger Trump and hurt his vanity: they agreed to increase defense spending and thus sacrifice part of their own social standard, they accepted trade deals that hurt the pockets of European citizens, they agreed to give up cheaper Russian gas and buy more expensive American...

They have their own "red lines" around Ukraine, because the war is being fought on European, not American soil, and it is about long-term issues of European security.

Trump is determined not only to "stop the killing" in Ukraine under conditions that favor Russia, but also to marginalize Europe, to which he assigned the place of a theatrical whisperer at the negotiating table. Trump's business model of politics is killing Europe.

The new American national defense strategy, which will be valid for the remaining three years of Trump's mandate, envisages cooperation exclusively with European partners who belong to "patriotic parties" - populist right-wingers, sovereigntists and nationalists. He continues to threaten to take Greenland from Denmark - a NATO ally - as a territory of strategic importance for American security.

Trump has shown more than once what he thinks about Zelensky, whom he treats as a puppet of the peace negotiations: sometimes he includes him, sometimes he excludes him. With the intention of negotiating directly with Putin, he has already magnanimized the victim of aggression, and by demanding that NATO partners take responsibility for the security of Europe, he has shown that this is a problem in "their backyard", and that he will focus more on the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific.

BLOOMY PROSPECTS

Zelensky insists on receiving firm security guarantees from the West that he will defend Ukraine if Russian aggression is repeated. It is one of the key parts of the peace agreement, but there are many mismatched demands. Zelensky is demanding the signing of a non-aggression pact between Russia and Ukraine, which Moscow is not ready for. He also expects the adoption of measures for quick economic recovery from war damages.

As far as Trump is concerned, who knows what he is ready for if he declares Zelenskiy, who has been weakened by corruption scandals in Ukraine, "an obstacle to peace." He could withhold intelligence from Kiev.

Most Ukrainians approve of compromises, but few are ready to make the sacrifices that Moscow is asking of them in order to end the aggression. Why did they fight if they surrender territories?

Russia is preparing to continue the war in 2026. Putin is not giving in. He accuses European leaders of "making Russia an enemy" and as a "gift" he offers a promise that there will be no more wars in Europe if Russia is treated "with respect".

Trump is on a seesaw: by making concessions to Moscow, he resents Kiev and Brussels, while respecting their demands distances him from Moscow. A mutually acceptable formula is far on the horizon. The key issue of territory remains unresolved, so optimism may prove to be premature.

The prospects for a peace agreement are bleak, unless Ukraine actually capitulates or the Trump administration organizes a change of power in Kiev.

"Signatures under a weak agreement only inflame the war," Zelenski said in his New Year's message. "Either the world will stop the Russian war, or Russia will drag the world into its own war."

Putin is not interested in Russian victims. He is not interested in compromises either, but he plays with Trump so as not to irritate him. He firmly sticks to his positions and shrewdly calculates on Trump's ambitions and haste. He wants Ukraine away from the West. He is ready to, as one Russian woman from the negotiation team in Istanbul said, go to war for 200 years, like with the Swedes. The Kremlin has never announced that it is ready to end the war unless its goals are met: total surrender to Putin's demands.

THE BATTLE FOR TRUMP'S FAVOR

Trump is persistently trying to portray the US as a neutral mediator despite Putin's claims that Washington and its NATO allies are not only involved but have started the war. The American is in a hurry to crown himself a peacemaker and win the Nobel Peace Prize.

What price should be paid by Ukraine, Trump has little idea. Democracy in Kiev is not his preoccupation. He is more interested in the profit he could make through the "fantastic possibilities" of bilateral cooperation with Russia when Western sanctions are lifted.

Convinced that he is the only one who can end the war, Trump still harbors sympathy for the Russian autocrat. It was evident when, after the meeting in Mar-a-Lago, he told reporters that Russia "wants to see Ukraine succeed." After everything they've been through, to tell the Ukrainians that Putin wants them to succeed! That hurts. Zelensky refrained from commenting, but rolled his eyes.

The Europeans are afraid of a "weak peace", they are trying to fight for an equal place at the negotiating table, but the angry Trump has given them a hard time. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that European leaders, who gathered in Paris on January 6, "will undertake concrete commitments to protect Ukraine and ensure a just and lasting peace on our European continent."

It sounds nice, but the harsh truth is that Trump and Putin are running the game. Europe is currently the biggest loser of the war, of course after the Ukrainians, who lost tens of thousands of people and ended up in a devastated country.

Moscow and Kiev will continue to fight for Trump's favor, and who the head of the White House will definitely side with is the million dollar question.