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.
