He doesn’t. His goal is to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia.
Correct, and then transfer that $500 billion minerals "deal" over to Russia as the victor. Hence, Rubio, Vance, and Bessent lied, or else tried to mislead Zelensky with vague verbal promises of a "defacto security guarantee," but then failed to put that guarantee into writing as Zelensky expected. Instead, they gave him a document that all but handed over most of Ukraine's remaining mineral and other resources to the U.S., to be controlled by "New York law (!). It was a deliberate shake-down attempt, even greater than what Putin's trying to do through military force. Zelensky was alert, read the fine print (or noted the lack of it), they got caught, and he got pissed. Can't blame him one bit.
I bet Trump thinks he's being pretty clever, and would not be surprised if he actually does have some secret side deal with Putin. If the U.S. can negotiate Ukraine's capitulation then Russia will allow the U.S. to share in the spoils. That kind of tough guy gangster thinking appeals to Trump.
In the meantime, Trump's envoy, General Kellogg, has been talking to the Ukrainians nonstop as well as USEURCOM, and has had the scales fall from his eyes. Notice that he did not necessarily go along with that first document that Trump's team handed Zelensky, and was nearly sidelined because of it, with Trump criticising him as being "too pro-Ukrainian."
