VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, Ukraine’s man of action, doesn’t take to limbo easily. His five and a half years as president have been a series of brutal tests. But the waiting game is the most palpably frustrating. Three weeks after Donald Trump took office, the Ukrainian president still doesn’t know what his plans are for Ukraine. Mr Zelensky reveals only minimal contact with the new leader of the free world: just “a couple of calls” since a meeting in September. He says he is “sure” Mr Trump has no oven-ready peace plan. How could there be when no one has been consulting Ukraine about it? He is not being informed about contacts between the White House and the Kremlin; what he knows he gets from the press like everyone else. There are “probably” some ideas that he should know about, but he’s yet to be told about them. “We haven’t seen them, and we haven’t heard any proposals.” The fear for Ukraine is that a deal between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin could be done over his head.

President Zelensky is in an oddly upbeat mood during an hour-long conversation in his presidential compound in Kyiv. His face is tired, but he has been keeping fit, the calloused palms of his hands testifying to the 7am gym sessions he squeezes in after sleepless nights of military reports and explosions. He even occasionally laughs, subduing the angrier edges of his personality, in what appears to be a communications push ahead of the Munich Security Conference that starts on February 14th. This conference could be the Trump team’s signal to snap into action, he suggests. “There will be two large delegations [America’s and Ukraine’s], there will be meetings.” Yet the mood music is ominous. Just a few hours after this interview, the American president declared on social media that there is “little to show” for support of Ukraine. “The war MUST and WILL end soon,” he wrote. Mr Zelensky confirms he will sit down in Munich with Mr Trump’s deputy, J.D. Vance, a man who once claimed to “not care what happens to Ukraine one way or another”.

Mr Zelensky sidesteps that insult. “Honestly, I think the vice-president of the United States today is focused on domestic issues,” he says. Ditto the rest of the Trump team. But he admits he still doesn’t understand the new administration’s real intentions. “We will be able to discuss some things at the meeting, and then I will find out their vision. I think the most important thing is that they hear our vision.” He warns the Americans not to keep Ukraine out of the loop. That has been Mr Putin’s aim from the start, he thinks, and he worries the White House could be easily misled: “If Russia is left alone with America, Putin with Trump, or their teams, they will receive manipulative information.”

The Ukrainian president is clearly concerned by some of the early signals coming from Team Trump. In January, the new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, suggested that both Russia and Ukraine must make “concessions” for peace. Too much, the Ukrainian president says, is being asked of the non-aggressor. Readiness to sit down with “this killer” (Mr Putin) is compromise enough. “Imagine that Hitler didn’t kill himself. Imagine that after everything he did to the Jews...people said, okay, let’s look for a compromise.” Mr Putin, he says, has “acted like Hitler” and the wrong type of diplomacy would rehabilitate him. Ukraine is ready to negotiate, but only with security guarantees that could hold Russia back from fresh aggression. A history of broken deals has shown that talks and ceasefires alone will not work. “Without a security guarantee, it’s zero…[Putin] doesn’t want any peace.”

The trouble is that America and some European states appear unwilling or unable to make credible commitments of the kind Mr Zelensky is demanding. He admits that Nato membership is unlikely because of opposition from America, Germany and Hungary—though, he says, the latter would snap into line if ever Mr Trump asked. “No one is giving up.” But if the door remains shut, Ukraine must “build its own NATO, meaning, he explains, a strengthened Ukrainian army. “We have to double it. Double. To be on the same level as the Russian army.” Mr Trump can provide the security guarantees without asking Russia, he suggests, and Europe could help fund it, he insists. “Missiles, long-distance missiles and Patriot [air-defence systems].” Is there a plan B if none of this is possible? “This is plan B,” he says.

Mr Zelensky has a warning for those who think that a quick deal undercutting Ukraine will make their lives easier. Western leaders focused exclusively on domestic politics are “delusional,” he says. Mr Putin is coming for them too, he claims. “No-one understands what war is until it comes to your home. I don’t want to scare anyone. It will come. I’m just telling you the facts.” Russia is increasing its army, he says–by 140,000 last year and by 150,000 this year. He says he knows of plans to send most of them to Belarus under the pretext of training, in a worrying repeat of the exercises that preceded the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. The assumption is that these troops might attack Ukraine. But what if they turned to attack Lithuania or Poland? “Why doesn’t anyone think that this will happen?” The maths do not look good for Europe, he insists. Russia has 220 brigades, roughly consisting of 3,500-5,000 men each. Ukraine has 110; Europe just 80. “Do you understand what is happening? Without Ukraine, Europe will be occupied.”

Mr Zelensky claims that his troops are holding their own against the Russian brigades, which remain focused on eastern Ukraine. The past year has seen Mr Zelensky and his troops struggle against a Russian war machine that is built on mass and fear. “If the guys aren’t going straight, they kill them.” Many have criticised Ukraine’s president for taking his time over mobilising more men, starving front-line units of soldiers and losing positions as a result. Mr Zelensky disagrees with them. Ukraine mobilised 30,000 a month over the last year, he claims. “It was, I think, a lot.” Yes, morale is up and down, people are tired. “This is life.” But the Russians feel it too, says Mr Zelensky. Western pessimism is misplaced. He denies that Ukraine’s lines are under serious pressure. If Mr Putin thinks he can win, it is only because he doesn’t understand the details, the losses. He cites intelligence that suggests the Russian leader is not getting information from his inner circle. “No one wants to spoil his mood, they’re afraid of him.”

Amid this moment of peril he insists that his own position is secure and he has public support. But there is growing dissent in the ranks, and he hints at it. “There are people who are very patriotic, and there are people who are not.” He dodges a question about his own future, and whether he will seek re-election, once an election can be held. That is not on his mind, he insists, perhaps unconvincingly. He is disdainful of comments made by Mr Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, General Keith Kellogg, that Ukraine could hold elections during wartime. How could you run them in a city like Kharkiv, under daily Russian bombardment? “It’s interesting when General Kellogg thinks about the elections. He’s 82 years old, and he thinks about the elections in Ukraine.” The Ukrainian president insists that power has not poisoned him. That, after all, is what sets him apart from the man in the Kremlin. “And I have time, he doesn’t. He will definitely die soon.”

Mr Zelensky says he is determined that Mr Putin will not use a new American presidency to sideline Ukraine. “Look, I will not let Putin win. This is what I live by.” Ukraine’s president is sticking by his guns to get the maximum he can in the way of security guarantees. Less obvious is what, if anything, he can do if Mr Trump cuts a deal without him.■

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