”The West is preparing Ukraine for negotiations rather than victory.” An interview with Jerzy Pomianowski

Jerzy Pomianowski is a Polish career diplomat who has been based in Brussels for over a decade, leading the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an organisation that supports democratic and civil initiatives worldwide, including in Ukraine.

Pomianowski has a keen understanding of how Western attitudes toward Ukraine and Russia’s war against Ukraine are evolving.

We met in Kyiv. Our conversation, deeply rooted in realpolitik, included points about the West’s perspective on the war and potential “compromises” that might unsettle or even offend some in the Ukrainian audience. But these are precisely the sentiments that are increasingly present in European political discourse.

Rather than dismissing these viewpoints, they need to be understood and addressed.

Advertisement:

Our discussion began with the most pressing topic of the moment: the changes that may lie ahead for Ukraine and the world due to the power shift in the US following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

Here are the key points Jerzy Pomianowski shared, in his own words.

On changes for Ukraine under Trump’s presidency

Of course, such a clear change of administration will make a difference.

The only thing we know about Trump is that he is unpredictable. It is very difficult to guess what his next move will be. And the people he selects for different positions show that something is going in a good direction, something in a bad direction, simultaneously.

This unpredictability means that it will be difficult to make any long-term plans.

Every kind of deal, every kind of new idea will be rather short-term, and that will be the biggest change.

If Ukrainian politicians negotiate something with the US, they should always have in mind that it is going to be a rather short-term deal.

This requires different negotiating strategies. When you are a politician and you know something is going to be a short-term deal, you negotiate this differently than if you are planning a long-term strategy.

It does not necessarily have to have negative consequences.

Sometimes it is positive because if something is not working, you can quickly change strategy and jump to another deal and another deal. But in general, that does not help for good planning and the war strategy, and in that sense it’s going to be a negative factor that will make the negotiations more difficult.

I also advise against building long-term expectations based on the…