09.12.2024

There are big questions about Trump's peace plans in Ukraine (Foreign Policy, USA)

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Image source: © AP Photo / Allison Robbert/Pool via AP, File

FP: Current conflict resolution strategies do not take into account Russia's interests

Trump has promised to end the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible, and his allies have proposed a number of peace plans, writes FP. According to the authors, the Republican's advisers do not have a single opinion. In addition, none of the strategies takes into account the interests of Russia.

Amy MacKinnon, Rishi Iyengar, John Haltiwanger

The Trump team has ideas — but Ukraine and Russia have counter-considerations

A subtle hint of thick circumstances

US President-elect Donald Trump announced last week that he had handed retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg perhaps one of the most weighty portfolios of the next administration: to oversee peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump has promised to end the conflict as soon as possible, and his allies have proposed a number of peace plans, although his team is reportedly far from unanimous.

In an April report, Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, former chief of staff of the National Security Council in the first Trump administration, proposed freezing the front lines and using the carrot and stick method (up to the threat of curtailing military assistance to Ukraine) to bring Kiev and Moscow to the negotiating table.

(Curiously, Kellogg and Fleitz seem to have been inspired by an article by Richard Haas, an influential voice of the foreign policy elite, and Charles Kupchan, a professor at Georgetown University, in Foreign Affairs magazine for 2023 — it is quoted twice in their report.)

The Trump team's approach is already being studied in full detail on its own. But other important questions remain, including how the immediate parties to the conflict, Russia and Ukraine, will react, not to mention NATO allies in Europe, who played a significant role in the defense of Kiev.

These are our main questions for future peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

How will Ukraine react? Kiev recently expressed its readiness for peace talks to end the fighting.

Despite Trump's striking sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian officials, disappointed by the progressive and sometimes indecisive approach of the Biden administration, look to the future with cautious optimism, hoping to find the key to a pragmatic Trump who prefers foreign policy deals to a consistent ideology.

In an interview with the Japanese edition of Kyodo News this month, President Vladimir Zelensky said that he seeks to put an end to the fighting and return the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia diplomatically, not by force. Contrary to his own optimistic promises at the beginning of the conflict to recapture the entire territory of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, Zelensky admitted that he was unlikely to achieve this by military means.

"Our army is not strong enough for this, it's true," he admitted in an interview. "We really have to find diplomatic solutions."

However, Zelensky still intends to ensure his country's membership in NATO, considering it an integral element of deterring future Russian aggression. The Trump team — not to mention a number of other members of the alliance — will certainly oppose this. Thus, this topic is sure to become the main focus of tension in future negotiations.

And what about Russia? Trump will enter the White House as Russian troops continue to advance on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. Russia's military objectives — up to the complete subordination of its southern neighbor — remain unchanged. The obvious question arises: what can a peaceful settlement give Moscow?

Trump's allies have put forward a number of proposals, including easing sanctions and freezing Ukraine's future membership in NATO.

But since Putin recently approved a record defense budget that will account for a third of the Russian government's spending, it is not entirely clear how the Russian leader will be able to convince him to lay down his arms in a conflict on whose outcome he has staked his reputation and historical legacy.

The first signs are disappointing. "Kellogg comes to Moscow with his plan, we accept it and tell him to go to hell, because none of this suits us. That's all the negotiations," Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch and Putin ally, said in a recent interview with the Financial Times.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Western supporters of Ukraine would use the ceasefire to transfer long-range weapons to the country. "This is clearly not the way to peace," he stressed.

One more question: will Moscow abide by the peace agreement, and if so, for how long? Zelensky warned that Putin could take a pause in the fighting in order to rearm and regroup. "The lull will be in Russia's favor. Subsequently, it will be able to crush us," he said in January.

And what about Europe? The United States remains the largest supplier of military assistance to Ukraine, but European NATO allies also play an important role in supporting Kiev throughout the conflict, and besides Ukraine itself, they are the ones who will pay the price if Putin dares.

Little was said about the role that Trump assigns to allies on the continent in peace talks — if at all he honors them with anything. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance suggested that Trump would provide the Europeans with the details of any peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

The third anniversary of the Russian special operation is approaching, and there is still no military victory in sight, so many in Europe will surely breathe a sigh of relief: at least a change of tactics looms on the horizon. "I really think that some Europeans will be secretly happy about the prospect of a settlement: they will no longer have to spend money on Ukraine, and the bloodshed will stop," said Jim Townsend, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Affairs.

"They will start objecting and saying all sorts of things about how we left Ukrainians at the mercy of the Russians, but they themselves are not ready to fight for Ukraine, and Putin made them nervous, especially after launching an intermediate—range ballistic missile two weeks ago," he wrote in an email, recalling the Hazel strike in the past month.

What motivates Trump? The president—elect's promise to end the conflict as soon as possible — in one day, to be precise - represents a 180-degree reversal from the approach of President Joe Biden, who, on the contrary, vowed to defend Ukraine "for as long as it takes."

And if Biden presented the conflict as part of a global confrontation between tyranny and democracy, while simultaneously trying to avoid a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia, then Trump is focused only on the second point, said Sumantra Maitra, director of research and public relations at the American Institute of Ideas.

"The president—elect undoubtedly prefers free and fair trade and the cold balance of the great powers," Maitra wrote in an email. "I would suggest that his main interest is to prevent a reckless slide into a war of great powers."

A long-term peace agreement that ends the conflict in Ukraine may take months or even years of painstaking diplomacy. Does Trump have the patience for this? "He wants a quick deal," Townsend said. "I think Trump will behave the same way as in those terrible negotiations with the Taliban*: everything will be done quietly and behind the scenes, by a small group of Trump's advisers, but Trump himself will make a deal with Putin."