Dividing the skin of the unfortunate bear
Alexander Smukler assesses the war in Ukraine — and the White House
The disastrous Oval Office meeting between the American president, Donald J. Trump, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with shouted contributions by the American vice president, JD Vance, under the watchful gaze and with occasional questions from American and in one case Russian news outlets, reminded our analyst Alexander Smukler of Montclair of an old Russian saying.
“How do you divide the skin of the unfortunate bear?” he asked.
Wait, Mr. Smukler. What?
“It’s two people sitting around a table, arguing about something that they don’t have,” he said. That thing is the unfortunate bear (although arguably here the bear is far more fortunate than it would be were it to be captured). It’s sort of like counting your chickens before they’re hatched, but far more dramatic. More Russian.
To explain that metaphor, Mr. Smukler said, we’d have to peel off a potato skin — or, as we native English-speakers might put it, an onion. “Let’s analyze the situation to come to the point where we understand it better.
“We have been witnessing enormous turmoil in the global game of thrones in the last few weeks,” he said. “I want to understand it better. I want to look at it without interpreting it politically, to see what really is going on.”
Mr. Smukler — who was born in Moscow, in the old Soviet Union, and left that country with his family when he was in his early 30s, just months before it imploded, and who uses his many sources, both there and here, to look clearly at the situation, both there and here — pointed to his last interview in this newspaper, published on February 14. In that story, “The shifting political chessboard,” he talked about the new Yalta conference that he is sure will be the outcome of the shifts in the world. “We talked about the ARCH — that’s America, Russia, and China — and how I am convinced that in a year or so the trajectories of those three countries will cause its leaders to meet and sit down together.” In doing so, they’d be echoing the first Yalta conference, in 1945, which saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Russian Premier Joseph Stalin establish the new world order that held from then until just about right now.
“I personally see the development on the global political scene in the last few weeks as proof that I was right,” Mr. Smukler said. “I think that Trump is starting to pave the road that will lead him through the ARCH to Yalta 2. We are witnessing a very important point in history now.
“So I am trying to be completely politically neutral when I analyze it. I try not to take any side, but to analyze the reality.
“And the reality is that we have a Trump administration in the White House, we have Putin advancing on the battlefield, and we have Zelensky, who is playing an important role as the Ukrainian leader and is trying to save Ukraine right now and give it a chance to exist in the future. We have Europe, and we have silent China.
“During the last few weeks, we haven’t heard a word from the Chinese.” Although, Mr. Smukler continued, they haven’t been idle. As the United States has demolished USAID, which provided tangible help to poor countries in the form of food and medicine, among other things, and through that help accrued the soft power that has been seen as helpful for the last eight decades or so, “every place where there is a vacuum of a superpower, China is there immediately filling that vacuum.”
But the Chinese haven’t said a word about Ukraine and Russia.
“And in Moscow, Putin’s inner circle is celebrating the events taking place in the United States,” Mr. Smukler said. “They think it’s a huge advantage for them.”
So how to make sense of this?
“The reality is that we all remember that during his election campaign, Trump told everybody that he could stop the war even before he got to the White House,” Mr. Smukler said. “I have said that it would be great, but I don’t believe that such a complicated political situation, and a situation as complicated as exists on the Russian/Ukrainian front lines, could be resolved in one day, or even in one year.
“We also know that during his campaign, Trump never mentioned the details of his peace plan. By now, we understand, with 100 percent certainty, that there was no plan, and that right now Trump is trying to create not only the plan but the roadmap to stopping the war, since he announced that he could do it.”
There are background facts to assimilate into this timeline. “We know that as soon as Trump arrived in the White House, there was a call to Putin. Probably it was more than one phone call — possibly several. Nobody knows exactly what they discussed, but we can assume that they were important and painful issues for Ukraine.
“Both we and particularly the Ukrainians were very surprised and upset that Trump made the first phone call to Putin and called Zelensky only afterward. Trump demonstrated that talking with Putin is his priority.
“What happened next was a very high-level delegation from the United States, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, going to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where they met with a high-level Russian delegation, including its minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Lavrov, and a Saudi intermediary. Obviously, the discussion was about the most important issues, and as I understand it, and as I heard from some of my sources, the Russians confirmed to Trump that they are willing to stop the war, not planning to demolish Ukraine as a state, and as far as I understand it, they are not going to divide Ukraine into pieces.”
Many experts had seen Ukraine as likely to be divvied up among its neighbors — some of it going to Poland, some to Romania and Hungary, and the lion’s share — or should that be the bear’s share? — to Russia. Instead, Mr. Smukler said, the Russians said that “we will accept Ukraine as an independent state, but with one of the most important conditions, among many important conditions, is that Ukraine must give us all the five regions that our constitution says are Russian.”
That constitution was changed in the fall of 2022 to declare that Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea all are Russian. (The Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, about six months before the constitution was changed.)
“The Russians said that they would allow peace negotiations and the possibility of peace only if Ukraine will give up those four regions, as well as Crimea.” (Russia invaded Crimea, which had been part of Ukraine, in 2014.)
“Remember that Russia does not occupy all of those regions,” Mr. Smukler said. “After three years of war, Russia occupies about 90 percent of Luhansk and Donetsk, about 76 percent of Zaporizhzhya, and 60 percent of Kherson. The Russians do not control the capitals of Kherson or Zaporizhzhya. And now the Russians are saying to Trump that if you want us to accept a peace deal with Ukraine, it has to give us all these territories — and that is only the beginning of our peace negotiations.”
This is a major big deal, Mr. Smukler said. “Ukrainians have to withdraw their troops from a territory that Russia claims for no reason. I know of no example in history, at least in the last 200 years, of a leader of one country saying to the leader of another country, ‘You know what? That piece of land is mine. You have to give it back to me.’
“It would be like Putin telling Trump ‘To reach peace in Ukraine, you have to return Alaska to me.’ Or Macron telling us that the French parliament decided that selling Louisiana to the United States was a scam deal, and you have to return it.”
It’s true that American politicians, including Vice President Vance, have been saying that “it is unrealistic that Ukraine can ever liberate the occupied territories,” Mr. Smukler said. “They will have to sacrifice them and recognize that they will become Russian territory.”
He explained the importance of those territories, and their capital cities, which are major industrial hubs, with huge manufacturing facilities. About 750,000 people lived in the city of Zaporizhzhya, and the region has the “largest nuclear power station in Europe,” he said. “The Kherson region is the path to the Black Sea. It had about 325,000 residents before the invasion.” When the Russians invaded Ukraine they took the city of Kherson, but “in September of 2023 the Ukrainians liberated it, with great difficulty, and pushed the Russians out.
“But now Zelensky is being told that to have a treaty, he has to give those two large cities and their populations to the Russians. It reminds me of medieval wars.”
What if Zelensky says no?
“Putin will not be satisfied. He will never agree. He already made the mistake of invading Ukraine, and of putting those regions of Ukraine into the constitution.”
So when Trump talked to Zelensky, it was with the understanding that Ukraine absolutely had to withdraw from at least those four contested areas — Crimea’s pretty much conceded to Russia by now — if there is any hope of peace.
“Can you imagine that Volodymyr Zelensky, the leader of his country, who has fought with Goliath for three years, now has to accept a deal that is absolutely not acceptable to him?
“Trump called Putin, and said, ‘Vladimir, what will satisfy you to stop the war?’ And Putin said to him, ‘the minimum is those five regions. If I get them, that would be a strong reason for me to stop fighting. But if that does not happen in the nearest future, the window of opportunity will close. I will move forward and take two more regions, Nikolaev and Odesa.” That would give Russia almost total control of the Black Sea, Mr. Smukler added.
What gives Putin such power?
“Many times, Putin has said that if anything bad happens, we will start World War III,” Mr Smukler said. “The previous administration took that very seriously, and that explains why it was so careful about the military aid it provided Ukraine. Now Putin isn’t talking about World War III, but he is saying that the peace treaty has to happen as soon as possible.
“My feeling is that the situation is moving as fast as it is because Putin has told Trump that he has to reach the first stage of a peace agreement before May 9. That’s the 80th anniversary of Victory Day in World War II, and there will be a huge celebration and a parade. Putin wants to announce that 80 years after the war against the Nazis ended, the war against the new Nazis also is over. He wants to say that he liberated five regions of Russia from the Nazis in Ukraine.”
There’s a slight problem there, because Putin never has called his invasion of Ukraine a war, despite the hundreds of thousands of dead or maimed Russian soldiers and the devastated Russian economy. He calls it a military operation. But that’s a verbal problem, easy to overcome with the emotional rush of victory.
Okay. So assuming that this version of events, based on reporting and intuition, is correct, what about Zelensky? “Let’s go back to Ukraine and see what he’s thinking,” Mr. Smukler said.
Three weeks ago, “Zelensky heard from Trump that Russia wants him to withdraw troops and people and find a way to deal with it legally. You have to get out of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya. And Zelensky is saying, ‘President Trump, even if we find a way to leave both cities, how will I be guaranteed that Ukraine will continue to exist as an independent state? Who will give us a guarantee that Russia is not going to come back for another part of Ukraine? For Odesa? For Nikolaev, which Russia considers to be Russian anyway?
“‘Where is the guarantee?’”
That’s the sticking point, Mr. Smukler said. It’s important to understand what a security guarantee means in this context.
It’s complicated, but “the simple explanation is that it means that if Russia violates a peace agreement, the country or organization that provides the security guarantee will automatically be at war with Russia and will have to send troops. That’s the guarantee that Zelensky is demanding from the Trump administration, from NATO, and from his European allies.
“But nobody wants to give him that guarantee, because it will mean that if Russia violates a peace treaty, they will be involved in World War III. No one wants that.”
Also, Mr. Smukler added, all the world’s leaders know that only the United States can provide such a guarantee. It’s the only country in the West strong enough to do so.
Such a guarantee was provided to Ukraine in 1994, when President Clinton promised Ukraine that the United States would protect it were it to withdraw all the very many Cold War-era nuclear weapons on its soil, left there by the Soviet Union when it fell apart. Ukraine trusted Clinton, but “of course they got nothing in return. Nothing really happened. Everybody forgot. So that’s why Zelensky fully understands that if he accepts the idea of withdrawing his troops theoretically, and if he leaves those two cities, with their combined population of one million people, and the disaster of their relocation, who could give him a guarantee?
“That’s why he keeps repeating the request, but nobody will give it to him. And that’s why it’s become such a huge issue for Trump, in his willingness to end the war.”
That gets us to the perhaps objectively insane, and certainly objectively extraordinary, meeting in the Oval Office last week.
“Trump got the idea of saying that in order to provide a security guarantee to Ukraine, and to explain to Putin why we would defend Ukraine in a way that would not annoy him, would be to explain it from a business point of view.
“That is how they came to the idea of the mineral resources agreement.”
This goes back to Trump’s time as a real estate developer, Mr. Smukler said.
“In the developers’ world, there is a term called anchoring a lot.” It’s a way of establishing a foothold as you figure out what’s next.
That’s what the proposed mineral deal — the rare earth minerals — was meant to be, Mr. Smukler said.
Zelensky was supposed to sign a deal about Ukrainian rare earth minerals, but after the meeting devolved into shouted insults, he did not, and he was told to leave the White House instead.
“The rare earth deal was smoke and mirrors,” Mr. Smukler said. “It’s dividing the skin of the unfortunate bear.” It’s counting the chickens before their grandmothers are hatched. “Ukraine doesn’t have those mineral resources. Someone said that Ukraine may have enormous amounts of rare earth minerals, or of lithium, or of other mineral resources. They don’t. Experts don’t believe they have it, and even if it did, 80 percent of all Ukraine’s potential resources are in the part of Ukraine that Russia claims.
“So the whole deal that Zelensky came to the White House to sign has nothing to do with mineral resources. There is not 500 billion dollars in the whole world market for rare earth minerals; it’s more like 13 to 14 billion a year. It’s nothing to do with paying back a debt to the United States for its assistance. It’s absolute, 100 percent unfortunate bear.
“The Trump administration decided to anchor the lot, and to tell Putin, ‘Listen, we have a serious interest in this area.’ That would legitimize the United States’ interest in Ukraine, in the administration’s mind. Then he could tell Putin that the United States has national security interests here. That’s why we’re here, and why you have to deal with us.
“So that’s why they told Zelensky that he had to sign the deal with the United States, which really had nothing to do with mineral resources but would give the United States a much easier way to negotiate with Putin, ‘because this is now between him and us.’”
Unsurprisingly, this did not appeal to Zelensky.
“He is saying, ‘Wait a minute. I cannot sign this.’ He fully understood the agreement to be total smoke and mirrors. But also, he fully understood that the minute he signs it, Ukraine will lose its independence. It will allow the United States to negotiate without Ukraine. It will mean withdrawing from Kherson and Zaporizhzhya. And it will not give him a security guarantee.”
This is bad, not only for Ukraine but also for Zelensky.
“Let’s imagine that there’s a president in the White House who says, ‘I want to stop the war. Period.’ To reach that goal, they have to eliminate Zelensky from the negotiations. He has become a major obstacle.
“He was the David fighting Goliath for three years. He can’t capitulate. He can’t give up the five regions and withdraw the troops from regions that aren’t even occupied and give up a huge part of Ukrainian territory, with nothing in it for him or Ukraine.
“It would be the end of his political life, but it would be much worse than that. It would be suicide. Let us imagine that Zelensky does what Trump wants. He will be killed by the people who are fighting on the front lines, because he would have betrayed them. They will come back from the front and ask what they have been fighting for. They lost hundreds of thousands of lives. They fought for a cause. For their land. The people who have been fighting for so many years will oppose a capitulation.”
But as far as the White House is concerned, Zelensky is done. Over. His Game of Thrones is ended. “Zelensky is a lame duck, and they feel that he has to leave. They said it loud and clear. They called him a dictator. They said he is not a legitimate president.”
Zelensky won’t necessarily accept the White House’s assessment of his position. “He is a very strong person,” and he’s been further hardened by the brutal war he’s led. “Let us imagine that instead he will develop stronger relationships with European leaders. Unfortunately, that won’t solve the problem. They will give him support and love” — but they don’t have the resources. “The keys to stopping the military conflict are in the White House — or in Beijing.”
Beijing?
“China had the chance to stop this at any time in the last three years,” Mr. Smukler said. “If Beijing had been on the side of the Europeans and the organized West, it would have choked Russia immediately. Instead, it was neutral and silent.”
Now, the options facing Zelensky and Ukraine are grim, he said. “If Zelensky refuses to do what the White House wants, you will see Ukraine suffer terribly. Russia is accumulating 200,000 fresh reserves and preparing for a summer campaign, even though the cost of the war is tremendous.
“The simple way to paralyze Ukraine on the front lines is to turn off Starlink,” the company that is owned by Trump’s close associate, Elon Musk. “If Starlink is turned off, Ukraine loses the ability to use drones and to use the internet, which is the source of communications on the frontlines.
“They just have to push a button and Starlink is gone.
“And if the U.S. stops sending the Patriot missiles — and nobody else can produce them — then that would be the end of the only antimissile system that can prevent Russian ballistic missiles from destroying Ukrainian infrastructure.
The meeting in the Oval Office was “not only unacceptable, it was a disgrace,” he said. Zelensky was ambushed. It was shameful.
To begin with, Mr. Smukler said, “I was shocked by the way Trump and Vance talked. It’s not the way diplomats or high-level politicians talk to each other. I have been to many meetings where people talked that way — it’s the way that people in low- or mid-sized business talk to each other. It’s my way or the highway. Accept this deal or f-off. That’s not diplomatic language. It sounds like Brighton Beach junk car dealers.”
Still, he said, he was surprised by how Zelensky handled it. In his opinion, he did so poorly.
“I think that his biggest mistake was speaking English,” he said. “No leader of a country would negotiate such important matters in another language, instead of using an interpreter. Usually, leaders use only their native tongue.” English is probably Zelensky’s third language, Mr. Smukler added; he speaks it, but not fluently. He did have an interpreter with him but chose not to work through him.
He’s had some of his own experience with that, Mr. Smukler said. “It was on May 28, 1991, two months before the military coup took place in the Soviet Union. The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, had just been replaced as prime minister in Great Britain. She was very close to Gorbachev, and she came to Moscow to advise him. I was invited to the British embassy to have breakfast with her.
“There were three of us there, young leaders of the Jewish community. We were told that we would have 30 or 40 minutes for breakfast, and then Mrs. Thatcher would have to go on to the Kremlin.
“We talked during breakfast, and I was very surprised when we finished and she said that we should move to another room because she wanted to talk a little more.
“I was trying to impress her, so when we moved there, I started to speak English to her. She was very nice, and very kind, and she said, ‘Alexander, I think it’s better for you if the interpreter translates.’ She said it very nicely, and she invited her own interpreter to translate. She said, ‘Russian will be easier for you.’ And in that moment, I realized how much easier it is to talk that way.
“Even now, I am thinking in Russian and translating it into English in my head,” he added.
Going through an interpreter gives you, the speaker, a buffer. It imposes some formality on the conversation. It’s harder to interrupt, and far harder to sling insults. It also allows you, as the speaker, some time to think about what you’re hearing and what your response should be. And if you understand the language into which your words are being translated, it gives you the opportunity to hear those words in that language.
“I think that Zelensky made a huge mistake in trying to negotiate in broken English,” Mr. Smukler said. “And you could see how nervous he was.” Zelensky had been to the White House before, during the Biden administration, and he’d been treated well. He’d felt comfortable there. “He didn’t realize that instead of being in the White House as he’d been there before, he’d find himself at the Diet of Worms,” Mr. Smukler said.
So the situation isn’t good. Volodymyr Zelensky, a man of great personal courage, most likely is on the way out. Vladimir Putin quite possibly is on the way up, through the ARCH, to Yalta 2.
On Monday, the United States cut off aid to Ukraine.
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