Ukraine faces new challenges in peace talks with Russia

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — When new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sits down Monday for peace talks in Paris with Russian President Vlimir Putin in ir first face-to-face meeting, stakes couldn’t be higher.

More than five years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Moscow-backed separatists has killed more than 14,000 people, and a cease-fire has remained elusive. While Zelenskiy has me ending conflict a priority, political novice arrives at table with veteran Kremlin leer in what appears to be a less-vantageous position:

— Zelenskiy still hasn’t h White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump that he sought to bolster his stature on world stage.

— French President Emmanuel Macron, host of meeting, has me clear recently that he wants to re-engage with Russia and get back to doing business again after five years of sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

— Macron and or mediator in talks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will be meeting Zelenskiy for first time since it emerged that he criticized m in July 25 phone call that has become focus of an impeachment investigation against Trump.

So re are concerns among those who support Ukraine’s sovereignty that Zelenskiy might end up giving too many concessions to Putin. That could le to a backlash from Ukrainians who strongly oppose any rapprochement with Russia.

talks are being organized in so-called Normandy Format, which was launched soon after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine. consultations h stalled since 2016 but have been revived following Zelenskiy’s election.

“re is a whole cocktail of economics and geopolitics that make situation for Ukraine very difficult and is posing lot of challenges,” said Bruno Lete, a security expert at German Marshal Fund of U.S., a leing think tank.

“But it’s critical that Europeans and U.S. support Ukraine,” Lete argued. “Without peace and stability in Ukraine, re will never be peace and stability in Europe.”

biggest challenge for Kyiv probably comes from France itself, with Macron speaking recently of “brain death” of NATO because of a lack of coordination and leership from Washington and also saying he wants to re-engage with Russia.

“It’s like telling Russia, ‘I will work with you and we’ll see about Ukraine,’” Lete said. “He should have waited until after Normandy meeting. It doesn’t help cause of European security.”

Normandy Format talks h have also been revived following several confidence-building steps between Moscow and Kyiv, including prisoner swaps and troop withdrawals by both sides.

Taras Kuzio, a security expert and professor at National University of Kyiv Mohyla Acemy, said Zelenskiy has alrey weakened his own position by agreeing to talks even though Russia insists Crimea is non-negotiable.

Kuzio described 41-year-old Zelenskiy, until recently a comedic actor, as “extremely naïve about international relations” and said he will find himself in a difficult place — facing a tough opponent in Putin and a population that would reject any capitulation to Moscow.

He said Zelenskiy doesn’t grasp that Russian leer will never compromise over conflict in eastern Ukraine because “for Putin, compromise is a defeat.”

And Macron’s pursuit of a reset with Moscow doesn’t help Ukraine eir.

“ danger is that Zelenskiy will be ambushed by Macron working in effect for Putin because his new agenda is to repair relations with Russia, to get back to a normal relationship, get back to doing business,” Kuzio said.

Despite challenges, Ukraine still has support from European Union, its biggest foreign donor, while Merkel has strongly supported sanctions on Russia.

But Germany’s longer-term economic interests are a continual challenge for Ukraine.

Berlin is seen as having harmed Ukraine’s interests by moving forward with completion of a Russian-German gas pipeline called Nord Stream 2 that will bring Russian natural gas to Western Europe. Its route bypasses Ukraine, cutting off its leverage as a transit country and an income source.

Germany’s relationship with Moscow has been complicated by last week’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats over brazen killing of a Georgian national in Berlin in August, with prosecutors suggesting slaying was eir ordered by Russia or authorities in republic of Chechnya.

Zelenskiy also isn’t helped by revelations in July 25 phone call with Trump. A rough transcript of call revealed him accusing Merkel and Macron of giving too little help to Ukraine. At one point, Zelenskiy tells Trump: “When I was speaking to Angela Merkel, she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything.”

At time of call, White House was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Kyiv, ding to Ukraine’s fears that U.S. was turning its back on vulnerable nation.

Ukrainian suspicions that West cares more about doing business with Russia than Ukraine’s sovereignty go back to when former Soviet republic declared its independence in 1991.

A diplomatic cable written in 2009 by n-U.S. Ambassor to Ukraine William Taylor described frustration by Kyiv’s political elite. Ukrainians believed Berlin was an “obstacle in ir drive towards EU and NATO membership,” Taylor wrote in cable, which has been published by Wikileaks.

Taylor, now acting U.S. ambassor to Ukraine who testified in impeachment hearings in Congress, cited a colorful formulation by Ukraine’s former National Security and Defense Council Chairman Volodymyr Horbulin which underscored that.

Taylor wrote that Horbulin joked that re are two Russian embassies in Kyiv, but “one speaks German.”

Vim Karasev, he of Institute of Global Strategies, an independent Kyiv-based think tank, said Europeans “have grown tired of Kyiv’s endless problems and are increasingly looking at Moscow, which has all instruments to leverage situation.”

“y increasingly remind Kyiv about delayed reforms and corruption inste of talking about solidarity and a common European home,” Karasev said.

European powers, he said, “can’t endlessly deal with Kyiv’s problems when y have ir own issues to solve.”

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Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv contributed to this report.