The Trump administration has warned that if there is not an early agreement on an end to the war in Ukraine, the US will “walk away” from the peace process. In Trump’s words: “Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass”. This leads to some obvious questions: which side will Trump and his team blame for obstruction? What if Trump sees both as to blame? And what does “walking away” actually mean?
The risk is that the US administration will simply set a ceasefire as the goal. This would be tempting in terms of an early “win” for Trump. It would also make allocating blame easy, since — as has already occurred — Ukraine would accept a ceasefire due to its weaker military position and the possibility of leaving its key demands unresolved; and Russia would reject a ceasefire because it has the advantage militarily, and does not want to end the war until certain outcomes (including Ukrainian Nato membership and a European “reassurance force” for Ukraine) are formally and definitely excluded.
The US would then blame Russia and “walk away” from the negotiations. But would the Trump administration by the same token continue open-ended military aid to Ukraine? And would it abandon its hopes of reducing US military commitments in Europe? Or would it reduce aid and continue withdrawal? If the latter, then while it might have blamed Russia, it would actually have punished Ukraine and the EU. And if as a result Russia achieved a major victory, then Trump would still be faced by a choice between humiliation and once again giving much greater help to Ukraine, or even backing a potentially disastrous direct European military intervention.
If the US wishes to extricate itself from the Ukrainian imbroglio with reasonable confidence that it will not be dragged back in, the Trump administration should set its own clear, fixed and non-negotiable basic terms for a peace settlement, and require both parties to accept or reject them publicly and categorically. It is of course possible that one or both sides would accept some but not others; but at least that could allow a decision on who was most — albeit not exclusively — to blame for preventing peace.
As far as I can see, on the basis of Ukrainian and Russian statements and of common sense, the basic and irreducible terms of peace are roughly the following: both sides would have to agree that the armistice line should run where the battle-line runs. Both would have to guarantee, under pain of sanctions, not to change this line by force. The status of the occupied and disputed territories would then be left for future negotiation.
Ukraine would have to agree formally to give up the hope of Nato membership and a European reassurance force in Ukraine, and renounce certain categories of weapons (notably long-range missiles). Russia would have to abandon its hopes of “regime change” in Kyiv, and of wider reductions in the Ukrainian armed forces. Sanctions against Russia could be suspended, but with a “snap-back” clause guaranteeing that they would automatically resume if Russia restarted the war. Russia’s seized assets could be paid into a UN fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction, to be divided between independent Ukraine and the Russian-occupied territories.
Ukraine would have good reasons to accept such a deal, because if US aid were to be withdrawn, Ukraine’s chances of holding the line against Russia would be radically reduced; and also because only with an end of the fighting can begin economic reconstruction and the (very difficult) path towards membership of the EU. Russia would have good reasons, because it offers a serious chance of a wholly new relationship with the US, and also of a radical reduction of US forces in Europe and close to Russia’s borders. A UN peacekeeping force in Ukraine could also be used as the basis for a new international consultative mechanism on European security based on the UN Security Council.
So if the Trump administration were to put forward such a set of terms, both sides would be foolish to reject them. But then, it is not for nothing that Barbara Tuchman’s famous study of state decision-making before and during war was entitled The March of Folly. To reject a reasonable peace, the Russian and Ukrainian leaderships would not have to be exceptionally stupid. They would have to be just exactly as stupid as past leaders of Athens, Rome, Britain, the United States and many, many more.
Anatol Lieven is a former war correspondent and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC.
