Piontkovsky: Trump unleashed his pro-Russian attack dogs on Zelensky to push the peace plan, clumsily translated from Russian, so that Zelensky accepted and Trump would say that nobody could be more Ukrainian than Ukrainians

From the Faktor, Nov 24, 2025 - excerpts from Roman Tsimbalyuk's interview with Andrey Piontkovsky:

"- Andrei Andreevich, please explain to us what is going on. Some plan appeared, then there were 28 points. Then it turned out that it was supposedly Trump's plan, then not quite Trump's, then negotiations in Geneva, and, strictly speaking, what will be presented at the negotiations with the Russians will most likely be rejected by them. Moreover, Putin rejected even these 28 points. He said something like: "Well, let's work with this." But essentially a huge amount of diplomatic — or pseudo-diplomatic — moves. Does this affect the development of events at all? In terms of pacifying the Russian Nazis?

There have been many such events in the last two or three days. I will, perhaps, begin with the conclusions that seem indisputable to me today. 

First conclusion. Ukraine will never, under any circumstances, agree to the demand to surrender the Donbass along with the fortifications of the Slavyansk-Kramator agglomeration without a fight. This is the first conclusion. 

And the second conclusion is… less obvious, but I am deeply convinced of it. I will explain why. 

Trump will not dare to punish Ukraine for its refusal by stopping the sale of arms to Europe and by stopping the transfer of intelligence information. These two conclusions are clear today, because I have already said several times that Trump is not a friend of Ukraine. And the position that he took six months ago — a sharp refusal of assistance — was his firm, initial position. He was forced to abandon it, to move on to intermediate options — maintaining the sale of arms to the Europeans and to Ukraine and the transfer of intelligence information. He did it because the growing pro-Ukrainian lobby forced it on him. That is the majority of public opinion, and the majority in Congress, including his own party, as well as a number of members of his cabinet. And the same will happen now.  

Trump's behavior was very indicative — I think we discussed it with you at one of our last meetings. During Zelensky's last visit to Washington — not the scandalous one six months ago, but the last one that ended quite successfully — after it ended, Trump confirmed his position, different from Putin's and coinciding with Ukraine's position: a demand for a freeze on the contact line. 

 

But on the evening of the meeting with Zelensky, it became known — and this was heard first from the United States, then from Zelensky's team — that he had staged a downright bandit attack on Zelensky, inciting his two pro-Russian attack dogs — Witkoff and Vice President Vance — against him... He shouted at Zelensky, threw cards on the table, shouted curses, and demanded that he accept not his — Trump's — position on a freeze on the contact line, but Putin's — with the surrender of fortifications in the Donetsk region. 

 

It was very important for him to squeeze that out of Zelensky. Then he would be able to reject the pressure from Ukraine's friends in Congress. He would say to them, including Lindsey Graham and other senators: "What do you want, that I be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians? Look, the Ukrainians themselves agreed." That did not work for him.

 

- And in recent days he has made another attempt—with these papers, written allegedly by Witkoff and illiterately translated from Russian by some, what was his name… There was a very good analysis of this in an English publication. 

 

Zelensky had a brilliant response to the US ultimatum. Zelensky's historic address was on Friday — the address to the nation. He said the famous phrase: "We are experiencing one of the most important, most difficult moments, perhaps, in our history. We are faced with a choice between loss of dignity and loss of a key partner." This was an unambiguous, clear response to Trump's demand for surrender. In fact, Zelensky said that Ukraine will never go towards loss of dignity and loss of freedom... That's why I confidently draw these two conclusions. This will be a very big moral victory for Ukraine...

 

- Andrey Andreevich, what's going on? Or let me put it this way: sometimes I hear that what's happening was a cunning plan of Donald Trump — that he wanted to make a gesture to Putin, but you see what happened: Europe against, the Americans against, the Ukrainians — completely uncontrollable. Then — Putin, go ahead, act. Could it be so, or is it just a coincidence?

 

Trump’s internal psychology — I’ve explained it many times on my shows. This last-minute, wild pressure on Zelensky, secretly, to force him to accept Putin’s position, the opposite of Trump’s — shows his true intentions. He wanted to force Zelensky to accept this and present it as a gift to Putin. And this would be his only argument against his own entourage. He works for Ukraine only to the extent that the Republican Party requires him to. Why? This can be analyzed for a long time. Especially his suspicious, disgraceful — costing him a lot of ratings — behavior on the issue of the files… in which there are things that are very painful for him. For example, in the recordings there are letters from Epstein to a friend in which he says that he was looking for a meeting with Lavrov and had already met with Churkin, Russia's representative to the UN, before the meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki, to give Putin good arguments against Trump. And we remember that meeting in Helsinki."