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Over and over our President Trump has said he wants to be a peacemaker. But many question whether Washington’s negotiation mediation will lead to anything like genuine peace.
In the Washington Post article below, former president of the World Bank, former deputy secretary of state, and U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick makes the case that Ukraine can be sustained and strengthened without costing the United States a dime.
Zoellick, who is also a member of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN) sets out an approach that should be given serious and immediate consideration by our Administration. Anyone and everyone who has any connections with people in the Administration should forward this to them and urge serious consideration. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
THE WASHINGTON POST
How to sustain Ukraine without costing Americans a dime
Giving Ukraine access to $300 billion of frozen Russian assets would put it in a position of strength.
March 25, 2025
Online, the Post had a photo of Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk region firing toward Russian army positions. I inserted the cartoon to remind that Russia and Putin are in a weak position – killing aggressively but with the economy coming apart. It is no time to give the demonic and genocidal Russian aggressor relief. RAM
By Robert B. Zoellick
Robert B. Zoellick was president of the World Bank from 2007 to 2012 and previously served as deputy secretary of state and U.S. trade representative.
President Donald Trump’s peacemaking in the war in Ukraine risks collapsing into a surrender. He correctly intuited that President Joe Biden lacked a plan, but Trump’s alternative has been to mediate, not negotiate, while weakening Ukraine’s leverage.
Vladimir Putin pretends to play along, but the Russian strongman will always add more demands. He does not want to acknowledge a sovereign, independent, democratic Ukraine. Putin’s war is about much more than territory; he is fighting for Russian history and his place in it. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine understands that Putin will seek to subvert any so-called settlement. Zelensky has therefore pressed Trump for security guarantees.
Trump will refuse any such assurances. Biden would not have provided them, either: The harsh reality is that the United States will not fight Moscow for Kyiv. And Trump’s minerals deal is no substitute. At best, it has involved the two sides initialing a weak memorandum of understanding to encourage investment.
But there is an alternative to a guarantee: The United States could strengthen Ukraine’s ability to defend itself and therefore to negotiate from a stronger position. Trump does not need to commit the U.S. military. He needs to combine economic means and military supplies.
The United States, the European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia and other friends of Ukraine should transfer more than $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to a special fund set up for Ukraine. This sum would sustain Ukraine’s economy and military for years without costing Americans a dime.
The international law of countermeasures clearly justifies this transfer. My colleague Philip Zelikow co-wrote a memorandum signed by 11 leading international lawyers — including a French former president of the European Society of International Law and prominent German, British, Belgian, Dutch, Japanese and other authorities — that explains the justification in detail. [Zelikow is also a member of the Foundation’s Friends of Ukraine Network. RAM] In a similar situation, the United States, Britain and France transferred Iraqi assets to a trust fund to compensate Kuwait and others after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Repo Act, signed into law last year, authorized and encouraged the transfer of Russian assets and has bipartisan support.
Some Europeans fear that a transfer of assets will undermine the euro. But as former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, Zelikow and I have argued, the Group of Seven countries’ position is strong if they act together. The freezing of Russian assets for the past three years did not harm the euro or the dollar. Countries hold reserves for reasons of macroeconomic stability, not so they can invade their neighbors — so the Europeans have nothing to worry about. And if the European Central Bank fears Saudi or Chinese threats to sell French bonds in retaliation, it could resist that blackmail by purchasing those bonds. It is shameful to permit Europe’s currency to become an excuse for geopolitical timidity. Indeed, the world will be safer if countries worry that moves to conquer neighbors will lead to the loss of their official assets in G-7 currencies.
The Biden administration deferred to European qualms, accepting instead a ramshackle arrangement that took only the interest paid on Russian assets. The European legal logic of using the interest but not the principal suggests the weakness of its position.
The Biden team also hesitated because most of the Russian assets are in the Euroclear, a central securities depository in Belgium. But many of those assets are held in dollar securities and therefore are subject to U.S. supervisory authority, giving Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent leverage to push the Europeans.
Once Ukraine receives Russia’s funds, the United States can provide Kyiv with arms and intelligence without a security guarantee. If Putin wants to waste the lives of Russians and North Koreans against Ukraine’s defenses, let him do so. Russia’s war economy is running short of labor and grinding down; last year, its central bank’s contortions, including soaring interest rates, sparked a fight with Russia’s military-industrial complex. This is absolutely the wrong time to grant Putin relief.
Trump’s emissaries began by stating what they would not do for Ukraine; then they threatened Kyiv. This is a bizarre way to meditate, much less negotiate. Trump should know that he needs leverage against Putin, unless his purpose is really to put a diplomatic veneer on Ukraine’s capitulation. Trump should make one of his fast turns toward a new, more powerful position.
Trump says he wants to be a peacemaker. The historian Tacitus wrote that Rome’s foes understood that its legions “make a desert and call it peace.” The United States should not concede to a Russian peace of Ukraine’s destruction and submission.
ROBERT MCCONNELL
Co-Founder, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation
Director of External Affairs, Friends of Ukraine Network
The introduction and parenthetical comments are Mr. McConnell’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation or the Friends of Ukraine Network (FOUN).