Zelenskyy has always been willing to sign a deal. He is not willing to sign a surrender. Put simply, trump wants Zelenskyy to "pay" trump for past military aid by handing over mineral rights, and then surrender to Putin. trump offers no further military aid. Zelenskyy is will to "pay" trump for future military aid. There is no point in him paying for past military aid, if there is no future military aid. The one core thing Zelenskyy wants is the future military aid. Any deal that does not have it, he will not make. trump thought he could trick Zelenskyy by suddenly putting him on the world stage, and forcing him to politely accept surrender. That is not going to happen. The war has been going on for three years now. Zelenskyy is not Benes. If trump comes up with future military aid, and delivers, he will absolutely get the mineral rights.
Poor Salty Walty.
No, Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t always been consistently willing to sign a peace deal—at least not on terms offered at various points in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
His stance has shifted over time, shaped by battlefield realities, domestic pressures, and international dynamics.
Early in his presidency, Zelensky campaigned in 2019 on a promise of peace, vowing to implement the Minsk Agreements—ceasefire deals from 2014 and 2015 aimed at ending the Donbas war.
But once in office, he faced fierce pushback from Ukrainian nationalists and ultra-right groups, some of whom threatened violence if he conceded too much to Russia.
A German magazine interview in 2023 suggested he never intended to honor those agreements, hinting at a bait-and-switch to provoke NATO involvement. It aligns with his pivot away from Minsk after taking power.
In 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion, peace talks in Turkey showed Zelensky open to a deal.
Drafts from March-April proposed Ukrainian neutrality—no NATO membership—in exchange for security guarantees, with Crimea’s status deferred for later talks.
Reports vary on why it collapsed: some point to hardening Ukrainian resolve, others to Western pressure (notably Boris Johnson urging Zelensky to fight on).
Since then, Zelensky’s position has hardened.
By November 2022, he rolled out a 10-point peace plan demanding full Russian withdrawal, including from Crimea, and reparations—terms Moscow flatly rejected.
In 2024, he floated ceasefire ideas, like one reported by Corriere della Sera, where he’d accept a freeze along current lines without ceding territory officially, but only with U.S. security guarantees akin to Japan’s or South Korea’s. Russia dismissed this too.
Lately, Zelensky’s rhetoric—saying in June 2024 he’d negotiate “tomorrow” if Russia left all Ukrainian territory—clashes with his refusal of deals lacking total withdrawal.
February 2025 saw him reject a U.S.-Russia framework excluding Ukraine, insisting on a seat at the table.
So, willingness? Yes, at times—like early 2022 or with conditional ceasefires—but not always, and never on Russia’s terms like ceding land or full neutrality without ironclad guarantees. His flip-flops reflect a tightrope: peace is the goal, but not at the cost of sovereignty or survival.
@Grok