Conversations on Ending the War in Ukraine Grow Louder and Emptier

Executive Summary:

• The beginning of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration highlights contrasting views of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The West views it as a non-sensical distortion that should be stopped, and Russian President Vladimir Putin views it as a confrontation with the West.
• The state of Russia’s economy plays a large role in Western plans for peace, as the Trump administration proposes continuing to impose sanctions to target Russia’s oil exports while Putin downplays the dismal state of the Russian economy.
• Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, Europe’s defense spending, and the People’s Republic of China’s cautious stance on its involvement in the peace process highlight the complexities of peace talks, further isolating Putin on the global stage.

The first week of the “Golden Age” of U.S. policy announced by President Donald Trump registered a stream of messages from the White House on the need to bring the war in Ukraine to an end (White House, January 20). The Kremlin duly responded with signals of readiness to discuss all matters of mutual interest, taking into account the “current realities” (RIA Novosti, January 24). The preparations for a possible meeting would normally involve bridging the gaps between negotiation positions. Nothing resembling such rapprochement, however, is visible in the ongoing messaging. Other parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European leaders, are eager to join the conversation, while other stakeholders, including most notably the People’s Republic of China (PRC), are conspicuously silent. What is striking about these multiple conversations is that the participants, without exception, persist with talking, or not talking, past one another.

The deepest difference in the conceptualization of war by Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is that for the former, it is a non-sensical distortion that should be simply stopped, while for the latter, it is a manifestation of the fundamental and irreducible confrontation between Russia and the West (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 23). Seeking to soften this clash of perceptions, Putin has suggested that the war could have been avoided if the 2020 U.S. elections were not “stolen” from Trump (Vedomosti, January 24). This supposition contradicts, however, his firm demand that the basic causes of the war must be removed before a ceasefire can be agreed upon (Interfax, January 20). 

Putin’s assertion that Russia had no choice in February 2022 translates into his obsession with controlling the strategic initiative and continuing offensive operations in Donbas (The Insider, January 24). For Trump, in contrast, the tactical developments on the battlegrounds are of no interest, and his main emphasis is on the senseless casualties, which amount, according to his estimates, to 700,000 for Ukraine and one million for Russia (NV.ua; VM.ru, January 21). These figures are questionable for both sides and for Russia, investigative journalists have confirmed the names of 90,019 fatalities among soldiers, which hardly accounts for half of the total toll (Svoboda, January 24). 

For Trump, the main rationale for ending the war is the dismal state of Russia’s economy, and many Russian economists concur that the real scope of accumulated deformities and distortions is barely camouflaged by the official statistics (see EDM, June 26, August 20, October 29, 2024; The Moscow Times, January 25). Putin persists in describing perfectly healthy economic prospects, but the Kremlin reacts nervously to the leaks about his criticism of the government’s ineffectual measures aimed at containing inflation and stimulating flagging growth (Meduza; RBC.ru, January 23). No expert can tell whether Putin is (or wants to be) aware of the fact that the Russian defense industry struggles to compensate for the heavy losses of tanks and other weapon systems by making fast upgrades to the armor from old Soviet arsenals, which will be empty by the end of 2025 (Re: Russia, January 16). 

Trump may oversimplify the proposition that a significant decline in oil export revenues would bring the war to a quick end, but he has a strong position for pressing it because of the punishing set of sanctions against the Russian energy sector enforced by the Biden administration in the final weeks of its term (Forbes.ru, January 13; Interfax, January 24). Putin tries to counter by arguing that U.S. oil producers are not interested in low oil prices, assuming that Saudi Arabia would hardly attempt to undercut the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) agreement on quotas (MK.ru, January 24). Russia’s vulnerabilities in the world oil markets are, nevertheless, widening and deepening, and the sustained overtaxing of its own industry leaves Moscow in a weak bargaining position (The Moscow Times, January 22). 

Zelenskyy is understandably anxious about the parameters of a possible (even if hypothetically) U.S.-Russia deal and tries neither to contradict Trump openly nor to be taken for granted (RBC.ru, January 21). He has abandoned his plan for a second peace summit but persists with the demand for Ukraine’s fast accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), knowing full well Trump’s skepticism toward this alliance (Vedomosti, January 23). His estimate of a peacekeeping force numbering 200,000 troops is at least four times higher than the maximum figure mentioned by the boldest of European politicians, and his desire for a deployment of U.S. troops finds no support in the Trump team (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 2; Forbes.ua, January 22). The main impact of this maximalist rhetoric is greater strength of the imperative for the European states to raise defense expenditures to at least three percent of the GDP, as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte argues relentlessly (Kommersant, January 23).

The PRC clearly prefers to wait rather than to re-energize its own peace plan, and the presence of PRC Vice President Han Zheng at Trump’s inaugural ceremony in Washington D.C. was a clear sign of readiness to cooperate in areas of mutual interest, one of which may be Ukraine (Rossiiskaya gazeta, January 20). Knowing how worried Putin is about every sign of positive developments in U.S.-PRC relations, President Xi Jinping granted him a video conversation and focused on the good news in economic ties, which are, in fact, stagnating (Vedomosti, January 21). Russian experts have little insight into Beijing’s political preferences but feel obliged to validate Putin’s hopes for escalation of tensions triggered by Trump’s new tariffs (RIAC, January 14). Xi’s hopes are apparently very different, and Russia cannot realistically expect a helping hand from the PRC, if Trump would find it necessary to strengthen his push for peace in Ukraine by increasing pressure on Moscow (Re: Russia, January 21).

The reality that the Kremlin finds difficult to internalize is that in the complex agenda of U.S.-PRC competition, issues pertaining to Russia and the war in Ukraine are rather far from the top. Putin expects that the forthcoming peace talks will confirm his status as a world statesman on par with Trump and Xi, but neither of the two can possibly treat him as an equal, measuring the superficial gestures of respect carefully. Every attempt to play hardball and persist with tall demands (and it is hard to expect different behavior from the Russian autocrat) will only make it more necessary for all stakeholders in the success of the peace process, disorganized as it is, to reject the legitimization of such attempts and whatever precedence they may set.