Ending the Russia-Ukraine War? Prospects for the Incoming Trump Administration

In the dying days of the Biden administration the war in Ukraine has been escalating with long range ATACMS and Storm Shadow missile strikes into Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions. Even with a new nuclear doctrine and MIRV hypersonic missile strikes in Ukraine, it is unlikely that President Putin will take the Biden administrations bait to escalate. Instead, cooler heads in Moscow will play a wait and see approach to the incoming Trump administrations positions on finding a cessation to bloody three-year war in Ukraine. Given the situation it would be prudent to take stock of recent events and statements to get a glimpse into what may lie ahead post January 20, 2025 when President Trump officially takes the reigns of power again in Washington DC.

Change of Tone and Narrative in the War

Of late the Western media narrative surrounding Ukrainian prospects in the war have shifted and finally taken on a more somber and realist view. Ukrainian losses have been piling up with Russia on the move taking hundreds of kilometers of territory in Eastern Ukraine in recent months. Ukraine is facing manpower shortages due to so suffering so many battlefield casualties. Former FM Dmitry Kuleba has stated that if the attrition war continues Ukraine will lose. This has prompted President Zelensky to alter his previously unyielding stance towards peace by stating that Ukraine could ‘temporarily cede territory in exchange for NATO membership’ to end the war. This is a positive signal that reality is beginning to sink in in Kiev.

President elect Trump’s appointees as Special Envoy to Ukraine, US lieutenant general Keith Kellogg and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have weighed in the subject of possible tactics and opening options. Kellogg has proposed a plan which allegedly received a positive response from the President is two pronged; force the Ukrainians to the table by linking negotiations to weapons supplies and possible future NATO membership in 20 years whilst proposing to Russia a proposal to sit and negotiate or more weapons would be supplied to Ukraine. NSA Waltz was more diplomatic in his approach stating it was too early to say what approach would be applied but uttered support for the Kellogg plan. This was followed up by Deputy NSA Sebastian Gorka who echoed the same approach whilst calling President Putin a KGB thug and imitating a ‘flood’ of weapons would be provided if Russia refused. All three statements were essentially veiled threats, which is no surprise.

Rhetoric vs. Reality

The tough talk from team Trump is no surprise and is emblematic of the ‘good cop, bad cop’ approach in the first Trump administration with the Pompeo/Bolton duo playing tough while Tillerson and Mattis played the role reasonable statesman. The proposal for a weapons flood is worthy of further thought.

It is hard to imagine more weapons being given to Ukraine than the Biden administration has provided. The reality is not so simple as American stockpiles are running low. The Biden administration had to scavenge the world buying artillery shells for Ukraine’s failed 2023 offensive. ATACMS missiles have been out of production since the late 2000’s and American production capacity of offensive missiles and air defense numbering only in 100’s per year. Ukraine is currently being supplied only with monthly arms production and Israel is first in line for arms shipments in its wars in the Middle East. The reality is Trump does not have the weapons supplies to flood Ukraine and Russia is out producing all of NATO in critical weaponry by a factor of multiples.

The reality is Russia has not lost hundreds of thousands dead as attested to by Mediazona and it is fast gaining ground in its war. In contrast, Ukraine is currently being urged to lower conscription age to 18, as three previous Ukrainian armies have been destroyed. Asking Ukraine to sacrifice another generation of its already faltering population is immoral and puts into question the existence of the Ukrainian nation. The Russian economy has weathered the sanctions storm and Putin enjoys wide support among the general population with some 80-90% approval rating.

Russia has however paid a heavy price in its war against Ukraine and NATO and this will prevent the Russian President to give in to crass attempts at American bullying. A new reality faces President Trump which he did not face in 2016, namely America is relatively weaker than it was in 2016 vis-à-vis Russia and China. He also faces a Middle East on the verge of exploding and a resurgent Russia that is in no mood to be further trifled with after 4 years of abuse from European and American administrations.

A Possible Path Forward

The Trump administration will have to get creative and practice the art of diplomacy, not the art of the deal. The difference being, diplomacy is based on the fact that your opposite is a state that will not go away. Instead your interlocutor will be constant presence in need of speaking, adjusting and calibrating of multiple interests to find a reasonable balance. Trump’s deal paradigm is one of one off tactical approach to an opposite who is done and dusted once the deal is done, hence good cop/bad cop.

There is no trust on the Russian side after 4 years of escalation, broken promises and the realization by Putin that the entire Minsk process was a shame designed to make a fool out of him. A good will gesture by Trump of removing some sanctions on energy or Gazprombank which was just recently sanctioned, reconnecting Russian banks or returning illegally frozen Russian Central Bank assets would be an essential first step to get any process going involving direct US involvement after all the years of bad blood. Likewise, Russia could allow Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Kursk without pursuit into Ukraine proper. This would begin to build a semblance of trust where none currently exists.

Any approach which attempts to insert European peacekeepers, conflict freezes so Ukraine can rearm or any NATO membership has already been brushed off by Moscow. Instead a review of the Istanbul agreement of 2022 should be a starting point for possible Ukrainian status of neutrality with mutual security guarantees, essentially an Austrian model which would Ukraine to survive. Istanbul already acknowledged the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government and would negate ‘denazification’. This may still be an open road for Moscow as governing Ukraine or getting muddled in its domestic politics is a recipe for decades of disaster. The Soviet experience should still be fresh in policy makers memories in Moscow of the dangers of ruling people who do not want your rule.

President Putin remarked upon President Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the INF Treaty in 2019 that this was a cause for concern and regrettable. This is a diplomatic pathway for a conversation to begin towards talking shop on substance in Ukraine. But the American’s must listen and not talk as it would be stand to reason that after four years of being talk at, threatened and blackballed by Europeans and the Biden administration, the last thing they want to hear is more orders.

On the question of annexed territories a reverse proposal premised on the Russian annexation process would provide a blueprint of parallelism to Russia’s actions of the past with regard to Crimea and the four regions. A proposal of offering a 20-year stasis period of Russian rule after which the four regions could hold United Nations (not EU or American) monitored referendums on whether to remain Russian territory, become independent or rejoin Ukraine would be a reasonable starting point for discussion. It would offer a long enough time period for the wars’ horrendous effects to begin to become the past while allowing both Ukraine and Russia to bid for the loyalty and support of those people residing in these territories. The final result of each would then be mutually recognized and supported by all parties.

President Putin and the Russian’s have never disavowed negotiations but the context where all parties find themselves in 2025 is vastly different from 2017 or 2022. These realties need to be taken into account whilst balancing the need to make Ukraine whole again after receiving such devastating destruction to its people, infrastructure and economy. Whether American officials can find the courage to stand up to the democrat opposition and deep state at home while being creative enough to thread the sensitive needle of Ukrainian and Russian grievances will take a herculean effort. With Trump focused on domestic reforms and pressing issues the question of whether the administration will have the bandwidth is serious question indeed.

[Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.