Yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky turned up to the White House in a black suit and a spine of steel.
In a meeting with European leaders and President Trump, he showed more poise and patience than most leaders manage in peacetime, let alone in his position.
The valiant leader had already been publicly humiliated in the Oval Office earlier this year, but still kept his cool while Trump did what Trump does in Washington.
But let’s be clear about what it was.
For all of the Ukrainian leader’s flattery (with non-stop ‘thank yous’ and a letter from his wife to the First Lady) and Europe’s strongly worded statements, the day amounted to a full-court press to push Ukraine into a meeting with Putin and a deal that, while not explicitly spelled out yesterday, would almost certainly see land handed to Russia.
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It is not good enough – and it’s time for the UK and our allies to say so.
Trump floated another call with Putin and teased a three-way sit-down. European leaders were marched in like human guardrails – having initially been kept outside by the petulant President.
The optics were polite; the ask was not.
The pressure is still coming from Trump for Ukraine to engage with Putin, who should be required to give up any hopes of ‘land swaps’ before talks begin.
Otherwise, that is not peace. That is defeat with nicer lighting.
Hours before the handshakes yesterday, Russian strikes killed families in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
You do not reward that with a pen stroke that amputates a sovereign country.
Do you think Ukraine should give up land to Russia?
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Yes
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No
You make the next strike less likely by raising the cost of aggression until Moscow cannot pay it. That is the job. Everything else is theatre.
There is no world in which Putin settles for parcels of land. Give him paper and he will eat it. Give him land and he will ask for more.
We already knew Trump was delusional – he underlined it by claiming Putin wants to make a deal to make the US President happy.
That level of misconception inspires no confidence in any future summitry.
Trump says he has since begun the arrangements for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, then a trilateral with himself.
Fine – wars end when enemies meet. But the self-styled salesman is still flogging a shortcut to peace that does not exist.
Meanwhile, Europe turned up in force – Starmer, Macron, Merz, Meloni, Stubb, von der Leyen, Rutte – and that matters, for now.
Keir Starmer, who has led our country’s support for Ukraine with clarity and confidence, said there was ‘real progress’ and a ‘real sense of unity’ yesterday.
Great. But that has been the case since Day One.
The presence of Starmer, Macron and co is useful only if they say the quiet part out loud, in front of the cameras and behind closed doors: there will be no deal that gives Russia an inch of Ukraine.
They need to say cleanly, publicly, repeatedly: If the price of Trump’s ‘reasonable chance’ of peace is Ukrainian territory, the answer is no.
Forget flattering Trump. Box him in.
Give Ukraine what they need to shut down the sky – layered air defence, ammunition without drama, long-range strikes to put Russian logistics at risk every night.
Seize frozen Russian sovereign assets and wire them to Ukrainian air defence and reconstruction.
That is what ‘security guarantees’ actually mean. Anything less is a press release.
And finally, cut the coyness about how this ends. It ends when Russia leaves. All of it.
That is the baseline, not the maximalist position. The only negotiation is about sequencing and verification, not whether Ukraine keeps its territory like a contestant keeps a prize.
If Moscow wants a photo-op to claim victory at home, fine – give them a nothingburger with an embossed seal.
But give Ukraine the protection. That is the bargain – optics for them, outcomes for us.
As practically every leader has said, yesterday was a ‘good step forward.’
But now go and read the casualty sheets. Watch the footage from Kharkiv. Count the children abducted, the cities utterly cratered and the power grids attacked as winter approaches.
Ukraine is holding. Their resistance has been heroic and their people have more courage than the rest of us combined.
Our job now is to make sure they can hold until Russia understands there is no profit in continuing.
Then, we – as in Ukraine, Europe and the US – must take back Ukrainian land and rebuild it.
Yesterday’s test was not whether Zelensky smiled in a suit.
It is whether Europe and the United States can say, in public, that territorial concessions are off the table.
There is only one way wars like this ever end: when the aggressor is forced to accept what he cannot change.
If yesterday’s Washington show delivers that, good. But the signs are bleak.
Trump values theatre above all else, and Ukrainians have buried too many of their people to be cast in another play.
This has gone on long enough – and the message from yesterday should have been that this is Putin’s last chance to back down.
If not, it’s up to all us together – Britain, Europe and America – to secure Ukraine’s victory.
And it’ll take more than suits and smiles to make that happen.
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