Ukraine Is Being Pushed Toward a Deal That Ignores the Core Issue: Russia’s Ongoing Aggression and the Erosion of International Law

Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine

This week’s flurry of meetings around Ukraine’s future — from President Zelenskyy’s reconstruction-focused call with Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, to President Trump’s parallel discussions with Macron, Starmer, and Merz — exposes a deeper, more troubling reality: Ukraine’s sovereignty is increasingly being negotiated by unofficial actors, financial interests, and geopolitical agendas that do not represent the Ukrainian people and do not address the central cause of the war — Russia’s aggression.

At a moment touted as “decisive” for Euro-Atlantic security, the diplomatic architecture forming around Ukraine is strikingly misaligned with international norms and the UN Charter. And it risks producing an outcome that may set a catastrophic global precedent.

Unelected, Unofficial, Unaccountable: Kushner and BlackRock at the Table

President Zelenskyy described this week’s call as the first meeting of a group tasked with drafting Ukraine’s reconstruction and economic renewal plan. But the composition of the U.S. side raises immediate red flags.

Jared Kushner — unelected, unofficial, and without any formal role in U.S. diplomacy — is now shaping discussions that carry profound geopolitical consequences. BlackRock, meanwhile, is openly positioned to monetize Ukraine's wartime destruction, as the world’s largest asset manager prepares to guide investment flows into reconstruction projects that will eventually turn profit.

Neither represents the U.S. government in any democratic or accountable sense. Neither has a mandate from Congress, from NATO, or from the American public. And yet both are being treated as architects of Ukraine’s political and economic future.

The result is a negotiation framework that blurs national interests with private interests — and treats Ukraine’s reconstruction not as a matter of justice, restitution, and security, but as a market opportunity.

The New U.S. Strategy: Pressuring Ukraine Into Concessions While Breaking From Europe

Since the release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), U.S. foreign policy has visibly shifted toward weakening EU cohesion and elevating states ideologically aligned with Washington’s priorities.

In this context, the push for a rapid “peace agreement” — one increasingly framed as a territorial concession — serves several U.S. objectives:

• Reducing the burden of aid to Ukraine

• Forcing Europe to confront Russia’s neighborhood alone

• Repositioning the U.S. as an independent broker rather than a European security guarantor

But these aims have nothing to do with safeguarding Ukraine.

They are part of a broader geopolitical realignment designed to peel away European unity, not strengthen collective security.

And by pressuring Ukraine to surrender territories, the U.S. risks creating a new version of Yalta — one negotiated not by superpowers, but by financiers and unofficial envoys.

The Backfire Factor: Russia’s Plans Are Not Concessions — They Are Expansion

Those urging Ukraine to accept a territorial “freeze” or partition appear determined to ignore Russia’s publicly stated intentions.

Moscow has already:

• Signaled a readiness to transfer parts of occupied Ukrainian territory to Belarus

• Allocated $7 billion in its 2026 federal budget for the “integration,” or more accurately, forced russification of Ukrainian children

• Systematically deported Ukrainian children to at least 168 camps, according to multiple investigations

• Acknowledged the abduction of over 20,000 children, though experts warn the real number is exponentially higher

Negotiating over territory while Russia is actively committing mass abduction, forced assimilation, and demographic engineering is not diplomacy. It is capitulation.

And any agreement that ignores these crimes — or worse, rewards them — would legitimize forced population transfers, a practice explicitly prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Lavrov in Riyadh: Ukraine’s Future Discussed Without Ukraine Present

Adding to the opacity, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landed in Riyadh to discuss the “Ukraine issue” — reportedly with American interlocutors — on the same day Kushner and BlackRock were participating in calls with Zelenskyy.

This dual-track system suggests one of the most alarming diplomatic dynamics of the entire war:

Ukraine’s fate is being negotiated on parallel channels — one official, one unofficial — and neither is centered on Ukraine’s own sovereignty.

This contradicts:

• The UN Charter

• The principle of territorial integrity

• The right of nations to self-defense and self-determination

If a territorial settlement is pushed through under these conditions — without Ukrainian consent, under duress, or by external pressure — it will not be a peace. It will be a blueprint for future invasions around the world.

A Dangerous Precedent: If Territorial Conquest Is Rewarded, No Border Anywhere Is Safe

If Ukraine is compelled to cede territory to end the war:

• Russia’s aggression is normalized

• Belarus receives land as reward for complicity

• Forced child deportations go unpunished

• Ethnic cleansing becomes a negotiable asset

And most critically:

Every revisionist state — from the Balkans to the Caucasus to the South China Sea — will study this settlement as a green light.

It would mean that territorial disputes can be resolved not through diplomacy or law, but through the simple application of military force until the world loses patience.

The erosion of this norm would be irreversible.

Ukraine’s Sovereignty Cannot Be the Bargaining Chip

The emerging U.S.-led negotiation architecture — driven by unofficial envoys, financial actors, and geopolitical calculations — risks constructing a “peace” that is neither just nor stable.

Ukraine is being asked to accept:

• No clear security guarantees

• No accountability for war crimes

• No binding mechanism preventing future aggression

• A loss of internationally recognized territory

• Reconstruction tied to financial interests rather than sovereignty

This is not a roadmap to peace. It is a roadmap to managed instability, in which Ukraine becomes a buffer zone whose borders, population, and political future are traded among external powers.

Fix the Root Cause — Russia’s Aggression — or the War Will Not End

Until the core issue is addressed — Russia’s illegal invasion and ongoing crimes, including the mass abduction of Ukrainian children — every negotiation will be built on sand.

Pressuring Ukraine without restraining Russia is not diplomacy. It is appeasement dressed as pragmatism.

A settlement that legitimizes territorial theft will not end the war. It will globalize it.