Trump is the author of his own failure over his attempts to broker peace in the Russia/Ukraine war. Although he blames Zelensky, he should be blaming himself. He has reduced the peace process to deal making. With that premise everything is distorted in attempts to find a solution to the war. And it is bound to fail vis-a-vis Zelensky (but fine for Putin!) as the moral and constitutional aspects of the process are subjugated to money.
This must lead to Ukraine’s rejection of any deal proposed by America. And it has. Trumps efforts look bizarre to all but a tiny minority of observers. He looks like a clown and his obsession with making money from the war while ignoring the moral and constitutional aspects must lead to failure. He seems unable to understand this which points to a lack of intelligence and/or moral compass.
Trump favours Russia because he has big plans to work with Russia after the war to make billions for America and indeed Russia in terms of exploiting UKraine’s natural resources such as precious metals, coal, gas and oil (see more on this below) .
Trump sees Ukraine as a country that can now, because of the war, be exploited commercially to America’s benefit – indeed to Trump’s personal benefit. It is reported that he has already made one billion US dollars from his position as president. He is using his presidency to dramatically increase his personal wealth.
If he wants to genuinely succeed he needs to act fairly by including Ukraine in all discussions. To date he has always started discussions with Russia and then dumps the result of those discussions on Ukraine expecting an agreement. Absurd. Obviously.
There have been far too many meetings that were destined for failure because they proceeded on the above process. Almost all have been an utter waste of time (except to massage Putin’s already enormous ego). And Trump blames Europe for talking too much with no action. He is being hypocritical.
It would be far better for Zelensky and Putin to meet in a neutral place with a delegation from America and Europe present. Such a meeting should last as long as it needs to; until success or failure.
And if failure, that should be the end of the talks. The war would have to continue until Russia is defeated as that is the only morally acceptable outcome.
Morals have been almost entirely lost in these talks.
My personal belief is that the only way to end the war is for Russia to be defeated on the battle field and that can be achieved by spirited assistance from Europe including the appropriation of 210 billion euros of frozen monies (see more on this below) held in a Brussels bank to support Ukraine militarily and to help rebuild the country once Russia have been kicked out of Ukraine. Although this is fraught with legal difficulties. But Putin does not care about legalities so why should Europe? This is war and in war the finer aspects of legal concepts no longer count.
Frozen assets
Around €210 billion of Russian state money now sits frozen in Brussels, an extraordinary financial limbo that has quietly become one of the most potent levers in Europe’s response to the war in Ukraine.
These assets are not yachts or oligarch mansions. They are sovereign reserves of the Russian central bank, accumulated over years to stabilise the rouble and shield Russia in times of crisis. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union moved swiftly to immobilise these funds under sanctions. The bulk of the money, close to €190 billion, is held at Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial clearing house that processes vast volumes of global securities. Brussels, by accident of financial geography, became custodian of Moscow’s war chest.
“Frozen” does not mean confiscated. The money still legally belongs to Russia, but it cannot be accessed, moved, or managed. For a time, the freeze had to be renewed every six months by unanimous agreement among EU states, a recurring moment of political tension. That vulnerability has now been removed. The EU has agreed to freeze the assets indefinitely, until Russia ends its war and pays for the damage inflicted on Ukraine.
The stakes are immense. Ukraine faces eye-watering reconstruction costs, while Western governments struggle to maintain long-term financial support. Brussels is exploring ways to use the interest and profits generated by the frozen assets, and potentially even the assets themselves, to support Ukraine. This would mark a historic shift: using the wealth of an aggressor state to underwrite the recovery of its victim.
The legal ground, however, is thin ice. Central bank assets traditionally enjoy strong protections under international law, and Russia has already launched legal challenges. Belgium, wary of being left liable, has demanded EU-wide guarantees.
For now, the €210 billion remains locked in place: silent, static, and politically explosive. It is money that cannot move, yet already shapes the future of a war, a continent, and the rules of global finance.
Ukraine’s natural wealth
Ukraine is resource-rich, and that fact sits quietly behind many of the geopolitical tensions surrounding it. The country has substantial reserves of oil, gas, coal, and strategically important minerals, though exploitation has long been uneven and is now badly disrupted by war.
Oil and gas first. Ukraine is not an oil giant, but it does have modest oil reserves and significant natural gas potential. Most proven reserves lie in the Dnieper-Donets basin in the east, the Carpathians in the west, and offshore in the Black Sea. Before 2014, offshore Black Sea fields were seen as particularly promising. Russia’s seizure of Crimea and later the full-scale invasion have effectively blocked or destroyed much of this potential. Even so, Ukraine still holds some of Europe’s largest shale gas resources, theoretically enough to make it energy self-sufficient if peace and investment ever align.
Coal has historically been central to Ukraine’s economy. The Donbas region contains vast coal deposits and once powered heavy industry across the country. That same region is now a major battlefield. Many mines have been flooded, destroyed, or captured, sharply reducing output and making coal a declining asset even if peace returns, given Europe’s shift away from fossil fuels.
Where Ukraine truly stands out is in minerals and metals. It has large reserves of iron ore, manganese, titanium, uranium, and lithium, along with rare and critical materials used in aerospace, nuclear power, and green technologies. Ukraine is already one of the world’s major iron ore exporters, and its titanium reserves are among the largest in Europe. Lithium, crucial for batteries, is present in commercially attractive quantities but remains largely undeveloped.
There are also precious metals, including gold, though not on the scale of major global producers.
In short, Ukraine has a deep natural endowment. What it lacks is not resources, but peace, capital, infrastructure, and long-term stability. If those conditions were met, Ukraine could become not just a breadbasket, but a strategic raw-materials powerhouse for Europe.
