In recent days, according to what was announced by the press, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, respectively President of the United States of America the first and of Ukraine the second, would seem to have reached an economic cooperation agreement useful also to be considered, in the intention of the signatories, and therefore to be relevant, in a perspective of support for the security of the country.

No question, evidently, since it is a bilateral agreement potentially binding only the contracting parties and only those according to what could be learned: after all, what Washington's objective was seems to have always been known, nor does Donald Trump himself seem to have ever made a secret of it. More precisely, if Kiev is allowed to retain control of both the subsoil and natural resources, the United States of America will be guaranteed a right of pre-emption on mining rights in Ukraine. It does not seem to be known, at this stage, and the conditional seems appropriate, which portion of Ukrainian soil would be affected by the agreement. With all the possible consequences on the actual consistency and effectiveness of the agreement itself. Moreover, the following conditions would act as an interesting counterweight to the negotiation/agreement: on the one hand, as far as we can learn, the denial of any hypothesis of Kiev joining NATO, since the mere "insistence" on the economic level of the United States of America there would constitute an undoubted deterrent to avoid, in the near and distant future, new aggressions by Vladimir Putin's Russia, which remained outside the agreement; on the other hand, the establishment of a jointly managed Investment Fund for Reconstruction. But, if this appears to be the consistency of the agreement found, then it would seem that it leaves the thorniest questions of a political and military nature completely undefined. Whether it can be defined in the strict terms of realpolitik, time will tell, if only we stop to consider that it is precisely the time factor that has made it rather difficult for Kiev to reconquer Crimea and Donbass.

The European Union, for its part, remains a third party and not a protagonist with respect to the bilateral agreement, in any case somewhat undefined if one wants to consider it in the context of war, since, in the empirical analysis of the entire affair, no significant and indisputable steps forward seem to have been detected on the most significant front, that is, the war front, which can be said to derive from the mediation of Donald Trump who, according to the initial announcements of his re-instatement at the White House, should have brought about the cessation of the conflict in the very short term. Regardless of any considerations on the potential and ideal value of that agreement, the implications of which will only be assessed with the passage of time given the war context in which it seems to have occurred, the real and truly appreciable objective of the so-called "ceasefire" would seem (the conditional is a must) to be very distant at this stage: the positions of the Kremlin and Kiev would still seem to be strongly opposed if only one wanted to consider that Vladimir Putin's Russia would perhaps intend to commit itself to the prospect of a lasting agreement over time and including the recognition of the occupied territories and the future neutrality of Ukraine. If this appears to be the scenario, one should probably consider that the agreement reached may not be relevant in terms of mitigating the conflict, with respect to which only the parties actually involved, sitting at a negotiating table for peace, will be able to resolve the reasons for the conflict.

Giuseppina Di Salvatore – Lawyer, Nuoro

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