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But you are putting in the thought, and as they say plans inevitably fail but planning is priceless. It's easier to recalibrate an imperfect model than to try and create a new inevitably flawed model instead.
Yup. And we've seen evidence of that on both ends, including Zelensky's late-election engagements with Trump.
Zelensky has played this much, much safer (and smarter) than many of his European peers. When a lot of the European elites were happy to publicly dump on Trump after he left in 2020 on the assumption he'd never be back, Zelensky never took the opportunities he might have had to join in to the partisan delight of the current-month losers. While there are doubtless countless Ukrainians who perceive Trump as pro-Russian as many Europeans do, Zelensky maintained a neutrality with Trump directly- even at the cost of enduring swipes- that has kept Trump relatively restrained as well, and thus in a position to work with.
If I had to make my own decision tree metaphor, I'd expect Zelensky's preference/plan to be that he views going along with Trump enough to keep Trump from doing a cut-off, but also more than happy to let negotiations fail so that Trump blames Russia. There are a lot of ways for Russia, or even the Europeans, to snarl talks in a way that Trump doesn't blame Ukraine/Zelensky. If Trump is empowered to do the talks, but the talks then fail, most of the threat of a Trump cut-off go away.
A possible sticking point / friction is the European-held Russian foreign assets and European sanctions on Russia, including gas sales, which are a medium-term need for Russia to re-fund it's economic rebalancing. Regaining those funds and restoring gas sales has been a major reoccuring demand to date, and it is something I think Americans who just want an end to the war underestimate Russia's willingness to press on. It matters in our discussion context because it's an issue the Ukrainians have no actual leverage on- the Ukrainians can't compel the Europeans to agree- and Trump in turn can't blame the Ukrainians if the Europeans refuse despite Ukrainians 'willingness.'
This may be a major asset for the Europeans to keep Trump supporting Ukraine, if only because it can also be used to backstop more or less 'bribes' to convince Trump to continue support. Things like 'the frozen funds will be used to cover the costs of American arms / buy American,' either directly (interest on the investments going to loans for buying American arms) or indirectly (the Germans agree to spend their new debt on buy american). Especially since it would be relatively politically popular in Europe to refuse a Trump demand for a concession to Russia that can be used to help the Ukrainians, which is three distinct politically popular things.
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