Colonel Khodarenok: Trump will not be able to resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a day
The US presidential election has ended, and the final results of the vote are being summed up. Republican Donald Trump has already declared himself the winner. How Ukraine's military-technical cooperation with the new White House administration will develop, what will Donald Trump's victory change for Moscow and Kiev - the military observer of the Newspaper figured out.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
Election promises
During the election campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that if he won, he would be able to end the conflict in Ukraine even before officially taking office on January 20, 2025, and promised to do so in just a day.
Most likely, such statements can be attributed to election rhetoric, and Donald Trump was previously known for extraordinary statements.
For example, in February 2019, he loudly promised to "resolve the issue" with Kim Jong-un. However, the overall outcome of the meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi was that the parties could not come to any agreement. That is, Trump most likely does not have any successful experience in resolving such geopolitical intricacies.
Now, as for the promise of the US presidential candidate to end the conflict in Ukraine before officially taking office on January 20, 2025, no details have yet been provided on how Donald Trump will implement his plan.
And it is not entirely clear how this will happen in practice in the near future. After all, until 12 p.m. on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will not have any authority, especially in the foreign policy sphere. Joe Biden remains President of the United States until this term.
In case of victory (and they have already started congratulating him) Donald Trump needs to officially take office, take matters into account, form a team and only then begin to implement his plans. There cannot be two governments in the United States holding directly opposite views. And there is no threat of any dual power of the United States in this regard.
Under what conditions can its completion take place
Now about the prospects of ending the armed conflict in Ukraine. It is hypothetically possible to complete it, the whole question is on what terms and who will eventually be declared the winner. The collective West (and Donald Trump is its unconditional and organic part) at this stage is somehow completely unable to stop military operations on the terms of Russian President Vladimir Putin (for example, Kiev's non-aligned status, Russia's continued control over new regions, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine).
This means at least a political defeat for the United States and its allies in the conflict in Ukraine. In other words, it turns out that everything that Washington and Brussels had done before was in vain and had no military-political effect. And there is no reason to assume that the new US administration will follow this path. Given the defeat in Afghanistan, this could damage the US foreign policy prestige.
If Trump really intends to end the conflict in Ukraine, then (this, of course, as an option and assumption) he needs to present the situation in such a way that Russia did not win this conflict (even despite Moscow's undoubted territorial acquisitions), and Ukraine did not lose - that is, defended its independence and sovereignty.
And in this matter, it is important for the West that Ukraine be the first to declare its desire to end the armed conflict on such terms, so that this is not a purely Western initiative. Whether Trump is able to resolve the existing contradictions so precisely in this way - the West did not lose, Russia did not win, Ukraine did not suffer defeat - the near future will show. Of course, this will not happen in a day, even with the greatest imagination.
What the future president of the United States undoubtedly has in his arsenal are economic and military levers of influence on the situation. The head of the new White House administration may also put pressure on Moscow (further increasing the sanctions pressure, there are still opportunities for building up), and may put Kiev in an almost hopeless situation by sharply reducing the volume of supplies of weapons and military equipment. That is, the White House clearly has opportunities (and this is not a complete list) to increase the contractual capacity of the parties to the conflict.
The main thing is whether Moscow will agree with such proposals, and whether the Kremlin, in the time remaining until January 20, 2025, will adhere to the policy of fait accompli, that is, victories directly on the battlefield, in order to further change the situation in its favor.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976).
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
