The White House has come back with a revised mineral deal for Ukraine that softened some of the harshest clauses, but while the details have not been released it appears that the crucial inclusion of a US security deal is still missing. That is a dealbreaker for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Indeed, the White House wants Bankova to sign the deal now, before a ceasefire deal with Russia is agreed. And it already seems clear that US President Donald Trump considers the mineral investments are in themselves a sufficient guarantee according to US national security adviser Mike Waltz. That is based on the assumption that Russia would not dare attack a US funded factory in Ukraine because the US would retaliate, goes the argument.

That is a very poor guarantee indeed. ExxonMobil is a huge US company and has major operations in Russia. After the war started Russia kicked Exxon out and took over its assets and has also expropriated one US business after another since then, especially in the automotive sector, and all the US has done is impose some sanctions. Even those sanctions, like those on oil, are so full of holes they don’t work, as the US still needs Russian oil to flow to avoid a spike in prices. Basically, the new mineral deal is a bet, a bet that the US can exploit Ukraine’s mineral deposits and that Russia won’t attack again, but if it does, it seems highly likely that the US will just walk away and write it off as bad luck.

Zelenskiy should, and probably will, ignore this deal too.

Security deals remain his main focus, but it doesn’t look like he will get any meaningful guarantees. There is another key meeting coming up between Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in Washington. The two Europeans are going to lobby the White House to provide some backing for their plan to send peacekeepers to Ukraine to police a mooted demilitarised zone (DMZ) if a ceasefire deal is done.

This is not going to work either. There are too many problems with it. Firstly Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has written it off as a non-starter and it is obvious that the Kremlin will never accept Nato forces on Ukraine’s territory in any form whatsoever. Then there is the problem of men: the European military doesn't have anywhere near enough. Everyone downsized their armies after the fall of the USSR and France and Britain could only scrape together about 20,000 at the moment according to the experts – far short of the 120,000 needed for an effective force and the 200,000 Zelenskiy is calling for.

Finally, and most difficult of all, is the question of what the rules of engagement will be. What can these peacekeepers do if Russians cross the DMZ and, say, shoot up a Ukrainian village? The idea that a British squaddie would be allowed to shoot a Russian soldier dead, even in self-defence, is obviously a non-starter. So what is the point of the peacekeepers in the first place?

Ukraine is clearly being thrown under the bus. Trump has no interest in helping Ukraine. The mineral deal is shocking proof of his intentions. Le Monde called it “racketeering” yesterday. The Daily Telegraph called it reparations; Russia invaded Ukraine, but according to Trump it is Ukraine that should pay reparations, not Russia, while he clearly intends to cut some sort of oil and gas deal with the Kremlin. 

How will this end? Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a long interview yesterday as his first 30 days came to a close, and made some good points.

Firstly, he pointed out that the talks with Russia have barely started; the meeting in Riyadh was simply to see if there was any common ground and any point to even starting the talks.

Secondly, he said that the EU and Ukraine have not been excluded as the US can’t agree a deal with Russia if Ukraine then refuses to respect it. Bankova and Brussels will be brought in when the talks start to deal with substantive issues (although the White House clearly intends to pressure both to go along with whatever it has agreed with the Kremlin).

And he added that a meeting between Trump and Putin will only happen when they have some idea of what they will talk about. From this point I think there are two likely outcomes to the war.

Ukraine is not going to get any genuine Nato Article 5-like security guarantees from anyone. So, the only sensible course of action is to return to neutrality and beef up its army – the Finlandisation option. Finland lost 10% of its territory to the Soviets, but this policy worked pretty well for Helsinki for decades and Moscow was also happy with the deal.

A more sophisticated and satisfying option would be to abandon the Cold War set up of Nato vs Russia and do a new pan-European security deal that takes in the interests of both Russia and Ukraine. This would tick everyone’s boxes: the Kremlin has already proposed this and wants it. Moreover, Lavrov has said he is also interested in restarting all the Cold War missile control deals, which would be in everyone’s interests.

Zelenskiy’s demand is to join Nato, which provides protection against Russia, but a new pan-Europe deal would be a security deal with Russia, so that Zelenskiy gets the same “ironclad guarantees” that Russia is asking for, as does Europe. If you add in not only Trump’s mineral concessions deals, but also restarting gas deliveries to Europe from Russia, that will solve the growing energy crisis, then there is loads of common ground and this sort of deal should be easy to do. Well, easy-ish anyway.

For me it’s a no-brainer. Moreover, this deal could be extended to deal with the other problems in play at the moment, including Iran, Syria, Palestine and even the China-Taiwan issue. I think Chinese President Xi Jinping would be as keen to end the rivalry between East and West as Putin is. I don’t see anything else on the table that will not leave Ukraine as a semi-destroyed failed state.