Two months into the Trump presidency and the question is: “Where exactly are we in terms of peace talks over the war in Ukraine, which Trump said he could end within 24 hours of taking office?”
To recap here, I thought that prospects for peace after the US election were good, whoever won the US election.
While both Russia and Ukraine could fight a long war, both were being worn down by war, and the long war also brought risks to both.
See my piece from earlier this year in terms of the motivations of the various players.
Subsequently, we have now had several rounds of negotiations in Riyadh, several trips by the Trump team to Moscow, the now infamous Oval Office ambush of Zelensky by Vance et al, plus at least one Putin-Trump call.
From all this, it looks like the Trump team are managing expectations away from a big comprehensive ceasefire deal, and then full peace deal, instead focusing on a revamp of the Black Sea deal that Turkey originally put together in mid-2022, but Russia then walked away from in July 2023, and the Macron proposal for an energy infrastructure ceasefire.
What we have seen is the Trump regime surrender all its leverage to Putin even before negotiations began.
These are now seen, perhaps, as compromise building measures to begin to eventually bring the two sides together towards negotiations on a broader ceasefire, then a lasting peace deal.
But actually what I think is clear now from the above events is that the two sides are now perhaps even further apart in terms of reaching a lasting peace – even a ceasefire. And I would argue that we are where we are, essentially due to the failures of the Trump team.
Just to recap, my assumption had been that Trump held most of the cards as he went into these peace talks, see my post here.
Trump had leverage on both sides – he could, and did, pull military supplies and intelligence from Ukraine, and could have ramped up sanctions on Russia and increased military aid to Ukraine to concentrate Putin’s mind.
In reality, what we have seen is the Trump regime surrender all its leverage to Putin even before negotiations began – no NATO for Ukraine, no security guarantees for Ukraine, Russia keeps all the territory it holds and the prospect of easy/early sanctions moderation.
Further than that, the Trump administration has signaled it is desperate to do business with Russia and the Putin regime. Meantime, the quite extraordinary interview by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East and Putin envoy, given to Tucker Carlson, reveals that the Trump presidency believes most of the Putin narrative that the war is about Crimea and the four occupied oblasts in eastern Ukraine are really Russian, and that referendums held there were somehow representative even though they were held at gunpoint.
Trump wants a deal with Putin at any cost – to Ukraine.
Witkoff revealed a remarkable lack of understanding as to the origins of the current war, but was willing to take the Russian line, hook, line, and sinker.
For a supposedly impartial arbiter this was just extraordinary. As if this were not bad enough, Rick Grenell, another Trump adviser, even cast dispersions on what Ukraine had conceded as per the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, that the nuclear weapons they, in fact, surrendered, were Russian, not Ukrainian, which is simply not true, as originally they were Soviet.
But what this all revealed is that Trump wants a deal with Putin at any cost – to Ukraine. And that actually Trump is unwilling to force any concessions from Russia or actually impose sanctions or any cost on Russia. Trump wants a deal with Putin, and Ukraine and Europe just have to fall into line.
In Moscow I think there is disbelief, joy even, at how amateurish the US negotiation is.
The consequences of the above are that thinking in both Kyiv and Moscow have now fundamentally changed towards peace talks.
In Moscow I think there is disbelief, joy even, at how amateurish the US negotiation is. They can see a scenario where they get given massive concessions up front – actually more than they could have ever expected from any peace deal, and where they would have been prepared to accept much less in reality, but that they can get even more, much more than they anticipated by playing hard to get.
They now see scope to divide the US from Ukraine and Europe, to secure a scenario where the US pulls all military support from Ukraine and Europe – and this offers the potential for the total collapse of Ukraine and its delivery into the hands of Moscow.
They see scope for total victory in Ukraine, so now don’t see the need to compromise but instead reason to hold out, continue the war, and just take, take, take from Trump. They view Trump, and his team, essentially as idiots.
By contrast, the Ukrainians are no fools.
What we are seeing is that both Moscow and Kyiv play the Trump administration for time.
I think it was clear from the Oval Office ambush that Trump and his team are no friends of Ukraine and are more than happy to sell Ukraine down the river. But that meeting and the subsequent suspension of arms supplies and intelligence sharing from the US revealed an obvious vulnerability. Ukraine and Europe still are dependent on some critical military supplies from the US, including long-range air defense systems and missiles and longer-range strike missiles and ordinance.
Ukraine needs time to build its own capability and hopes that Europe gets it act together to fill the void in supplies left by the untrustworthy Americans. Ukraine is playing for time. It is playing the peace narrative, trying not to be seen as an impediment to peace talks to the point of risking continued US supplies of those key munitions, and hoping that Russia makes a misstep to somehow damage the Trump-Putin bromance.
Actually, what we are seeing is that both Moscow and Kyiv play the Trump administration for time. But while for Moscow it is because they figure they can get much more by now playing the long negotiation game, for Ukraine they have already concluded that they will get nothing from these negotiations, but by playing for time they might reach some level of military independence from the US that they can eventually tell Trump where to go.
I think Kyiv understands now that Trump will try and impose a peace deal which includes no NATO, no security guarantees, and the forced acceptance of the loss of Crimea and the four regions.
Add in there a scenario likely of limitations on its military capability and early elections, which would force the end of martial law, mobilization, and the collapse of its front lines.
They recognize that the deal that Trump and Putin are likely concocting is the end of Ukraine as a sovereign state. Obviously, for Zelensky and any Ukrainian leader, that is totally unacceptable.
Indeed, a recent opinion poll showed over 80% of Ukrainians now favor fighting on in the war even if US support is pulled – the Oval Office ambush acting to unify the nation around Zelensky.
The latter was acknowledged by US NSC head Waltz in his Congressional testimony, noting that Ukrainians would fight to defend their country with their fingernails if need be.
This shows that Ukraine has limits and clear red lines to the kind of deal currently being discussed by Trump and Putin is just not acceptable to Ukraine. No deal will be done on these terms, Ukraine will fight on.
Looking at the recent Black Sea deal, I wonder here if, reading between the lines, the Trump administration now gets the reality that a substantive peace deal is now beyond reach – I would argue largely due to their own incompetence.
Notable here that while the two sides agreed to abide by the latest Black Sea ceasefire deal, Russia added the conditions that sanctions were moderated first on Roscelkhozbank, and other entities facilitating trade in agriculture through the Black Sea.
Trump had the deal of the century, literally in his hand, and he blew it.
The WH statement following the agreement was vague. But obviously any such sanctions moderation would require the agreement also of Europe.
Now, either Trump’s team knew that and wanted to shift the blame of any failure of the Black Sea deal onto Europe, or is in Moscow’s camp of wanting to erode the credibility of sanctions more generally and to weaken the Western alliance – what is remaining of it.
In summary to the above, I now think that the prospect for a lasting ceasefire, and peace agreement of any consequence are quite poor/low.
Why would Ukraine accept any deal which leaves its sovereignty and security undermined to the point of representing an existential threat or weakness?
And why would Moscow now accept anything but total surrender by Ukraine, as expected to be delivered by the Trump administration?
Trump had the deal of the century, literally in his hand, and he blew it. The only thing is the people who will really suffer as a consequence of these failings are Ukrainians. Sad, but I fear true.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
Reprinted from the author’s tashecon blog. See the original here.