President Trump and the Ukraine Conflict
On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, leaving the stage to Boris Yeltsin as the President of Russia. The Soviet Union became history.
During the Yeltsin years, Western countries lectured Moscow on the merits of democracy and the free market. Russia implemented a radical privatization program encouraged by the West which paved the way for Russian oligarchs. The fall in oil prices aggravated Russia’s economic challenges. The GNP fell dramatically. Inflation reached record levels. Some former members of the Warsaw Pact crossed over to the “other side” in exercising their indisputable right under international law but “in violation of promises that NATO would not expand even an inch eastward beyond the Oder River” according to Moscow. The West could and should have done more to alleviate Russia’s frustration and engage Moscow. The loss of an empire is more than a disappointment and its reverberations last.
On December 31, 1999, Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly and named Vladimir Putin as acting president. Since then, Mr. Putin has ruled over Russia with an iron fist. Would Washington and its European allies have followed a different, more embracing policy towards Moscow had Mr. Gorbachev and Mr. Yeltsin been succeeded by Gorbachev II? Probably not.
In March 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in “the smoothest invasion of modern times” according to a BBC report. “It was over before the outside world realized it had even started.”
The West’s reaction to the annexation was moderate. Russia was expelled from the G8. Rejection of the annexation became a routine feature of the West’s foreign policy discourse.
On 24 February 2022, after its proposals for a new European security architecture were rejected by the West, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. The people of Ukraine confronted the Russian assault with remarkable bravery and resilience. If President Putin’s initial plan was the conquest of Ukraine or shutting it off the Black Sea, failure to accomplish them was a setback.
Since then, the West, led by Washington, has repeatedly declared its commitment to standing with Ukraine “for as long as it takes”. They have provided Ukraine with more and more military assistance. Thus, they have become direct parties to the war.
On September 30, 2022, President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia saying the people of those four regions are Russia’s “citizens forever”. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution rejecting this annexation as illegal and upholding Ukraine’s right to territorial integrity.
For some, Washington’s support for Ukraine is the dictate of the “rules-based international order”, a stand against aggression.[i] President Biden has struck a parallel between the fight against Nazi Germany and the invasion of Ukraine.
For others, who also disapprove of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the whole story could have been written differently. They see the conflict as a proxy war to “weaken and isolate” Russia. After all, though a nuclear power, Russia is the world’s largest country comprising 11 time zones and a population of only 145 million.
Beyond these conflicting views, it has been clear that Ukraine could not win this war and restore its territorial integrity by force.
Mr. Trump’s second term election has brought a “negotiated peace” on the international agenda. For long, the president-elect has said that he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Kyiv to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
During the first year of the Russian invasion, particularly after Kyiv launched its spring offensive last year, reports of this kind were rare. Later, despite denials, they started reflecting war fatigue.
If peace talks are to start, the first step will have to be the declaration of a ceasefire. Then the items to be discussed would be the future of the territories annexed/invaded by Russia including Crimea, Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and Western sanctions against Russia, particularly Moscow’s 300-billion-dollar frozen assets in the West.
Ukraine and its Western allies would start by raising the issue of Crimea. Russians will not even talk about it.[ii] Notably, Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, told the BBC recently that the incoming administration would ask President Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision for peace”. “And if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, well we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows us that he’s not serious,” he said. “Crimea is gone.” A spokesperson for Trump distanced the incoming president from the remarks, saying Mr. Lanza “does not speak for him”.[iii]
Moreover, President-elect Mr. Trump’s choice for Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that outright defeat of Russia is not a realistic option adding, “… the future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific.” [iv]
Thus, the top two interlinked items would be the future of the territories occupied by Russia since February 24, 2022, and Ukraine’s membership in NATO/“security guarantees” for Ukraine.
Recently, there were reports about statements attributed to Ukrainian officials that Ukraine prioritizes security, not territory.
Would Russia withdraw from those territories in exchange for written guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO? No. Moscow would insist on keeping the territories it has annexed because President Putin will try to finish the war in a way that would allow him to tell the people of Russia that they have achieved their objective. However, he may show some flexibility regarding the territories occupied since the annexation of the four regions.
Would Moscow be prepared to guarantee that it would respect Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity in the future? Perhaps, but only in exchange for written guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO. After all, Moscow has long argued that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was given verbal assurances that the Alliance was not going to embrace the former members of the Warsaw Pact.
Would Washington and its Western insist on Ukraine joining NATO? No.
Moscow may not outright reject Kyiv’s membership in the EU but may try to condition it on an understanding regarding the future relationship between Russia and the EU.
Last Friday, Chancellor Scholz spoke with President Putin on the phone for the first time in two years and asked him to end the war and withdraw Russian forces from Ukrainian territory. According to the Kremlin readout of the call, Mr. Putin said that any possible agreements must address security concerns of the Russian Federation, rest on the new territorial realities, and, most importantly, eliminate the original causes of the conflict.
He also emphasized that Russia had always honored its commitments under various treaties and contracts in the energy sector and was still willing to promote mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side showed interest. It is worth remembering in this connection that the construction of “North Stream 2, the 1,234-kilometre-long natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany running through the Baltic Sea, was finished shortly before the invasion of Ukraine. It never became operational and on September 26, 2022, the 11-billion-dollar pipeline was blown up. Responsibility for the suspected sabotage remains unknown though it is clear that it was not Russia, as initially alleged by some.
On Sunday, November 13, President Biden, with only two months remaining at the White House, authorized Ukraine to use American long-range missiles for limited strikes inside Russia in response to North Korea’s deployment of troops to aid Moscow’s war effort. The deployment of Korean forces was widely reported towards the end of October. On November 13, Mr. Biden and Mr. met at the White House and discussed the war in Ukraine among other issues. The question is whether Mr. Biden informed his guest of his intention to do so. He may have thought his decision would not lead to a major escalation before Mr. Trump assumed office with promises of peace but its impact on a possible ceasefire remains to be seen.
The path to peace in Ukraine would be an arduous one. It will take time. Russia will not meet Western expectations easily. President Trump is a dealmaker but he is short of patience and unpredictable. The West, primarily Washington, after having repeatedly declared for nearly three years that it would support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, would be reluctant to appear as having failed. Washington would do its best to avoid the impression that it is not a trustworthy ally and has lost yet another war.
Despite their more often than not strongly expressed commitment to support Ukraine militarily, many EU countries that have experienced the negative consequences of the war for their security, economy, and energy needs would be happy to see the war in Ukraine somehow end.
And Kyiv knows that the people of Ukraine will start questioning its conduct of the war and its dependence on Washington, energizing domestic politics.
Since all this would be a tough sell for President Trump, he will underline his peace-making capacity, having prevented Russia’s conquest of Ukraine and America’s further involvement in an unwinnable war, and emphasize the need to focus on the Indo-Pacific.
And if peace is achieved at some point in the future, then Ukrainians would look back at their loss of lives, suffering, and devastation, and ask themselves if history could have been written differently. A confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at 400,000, according to people familiar with the matter.[v] Perhaps former President Biden, former Secretary of State Blinken, and President of the European Commission Von der Leyen would help the people of Ukraine find the answers.
[i] https://diplomaticopinion.com/2021/05/10/the-rules-based-international-order/
[ii] https://diplomaticopinion.com/2022/04/04/russia-ukraine-conflict-the-question-of-crimea/
[iii] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxrwr078v7o
[iv] https://www.rubio.senate.gov/icymi-rubio-joins-the-world-over-with-raymond-arroyo/
[v] https://www.wsj.com/world/one-million-are-now-dead-or-injured-in-the-russia-ukraine-war-b09d04e5