Russia invaded Ukraine under a very weak pretense of de-nazification, and buldozed over a lot of privately owned means of production, including foreign owned. They had some reputation to lose back then, now the worst that could happen would be Trump getting pissed at them and threatening them to escalate the war, but never doing so, because he’s still beholden to the capital interests, and this war has been extremely lucrative for the world’s main exporter of weapons. At best(for Putin) Trump would claim that Zelensky is using private contractors as human shields and that Zelensky broke the deal because the yield of the mining operations was lower than promised, and because of that USA will help Russia deal with the terrorists that overtook the land.

As for the nuclear war - billionaires that push this war forward for their profit aren’t interested in living in bunkers, they want to lie on beaches and be sucked off by sex trafficed slaves. The war will never escalate beyond the point where it would endanger their profits, and definitely not to the point where they might worry for their lifes. No major player in this conflict that’s capable of employing a nuclear armaments will ever do so for those reasons, not to mention the soft power they would lose if they did - not that Trump and Putin are very concerned with soft power…

Russia doesn’t mind continuing, USA doesn’t mind either, it’s just that Trump lied in his campaign promises that he did, and now he’s making a stink about it not being possible because Zelensky is a dictator. If they can cause an election in Ukraine and do a coup once Zelensky wins, or forge some different series of events that leads to Ukraine changing it’s president to one aligned with Russia, then it would be a preferable outcome for them, but it’s going to be difficult without losing a lot of influence and power, and Trump is already very unpopular, so I feel it’s unlikely they would try, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Trump antagonized both the world and his own citizens, and the backlash is growing to a degree where he might lack means to control it. Zelensky probably saw that as his most viable way out, so he chose to argue with Trump and J. D. Vance, and hoped that the backlash will limit their further meddling. Not that he had any good option there, but out of bad ones this one at least didn’t lock all Ukrainian cards in a bad deal. At this point Ukraine can try dealing with Europe, Turkey (was it Turkey? I think so) or even China, and they still have those tasty minerals that Trump helped advertise.

Europe in general has to rethink their means of defence, and if Ukraine has something valuable, a new military alliance with more hawkish stance against both Russia and USA, one that would include security assurances for Ukraine and other member states, is not out of question. If fascism in USA keep getting worse, then Europe will definitely need it. If the bubble bursts, they may include USA in this alliance in the future, though probably without as much sway as it had in NATO. Not saying that it will happen, just a wild shot in the dark, but there are more options for Ukraine now, than if Zelensky went along with the farce, and, I don’t know, apologized for being a dictator and promised to be a good boy.