Thirty-three years ago the Budapest Memorandum promised Ukraine security in exchange for nuclear disarmament. Now, according to President Zelensky, Washington is offering a different exchange: peace — in exchange for Ukrainian territory.
In an interview with Axios, Zelensky openly revealed the mechanics of American pressure: the Trump administration does indeed want to stop the war, but "sees only one way to do it" — the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. The president is convinced that after the U.S. closes the Iranian dossier, pressure on Kyiv will resume with renewed force.
"Why should we pay for that? We are not the aggressors," Zelensky said. According to him, the problem is not only the demand itself, but that "no one is really assessing the danger such a decision poses to our security."
It's important here to distinguish two different conflicts that are often mixed in a single sentence. The first is about who the aggressor is. The second is about which decision is pragmatically effective in stopping the fighting. The U.S., it seems, answered the first question the same way as Kyiv did, but moved straight to the second — without explaining how withdrawing Ukrainian forces from their own land would stop Putin rather than reward him.
It is this logical gap that worries Zelensky the most. If concession becomes an instrument of peace without any security guarantees as an outcome, then the next pressure is only a matter of time and pretext.
The question that remains open: if Washington truly believes that withdrawing troops is the only way to stop Putin — is it prepared to publicly explain what, exactly, would hold Russia back from the next step after Kyiv pulls back?
