After President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone for two hours on Monday, Trump said the call went very well and that Moscow and Kyiv “will immediately start negotiations” toward a ceasefire and end to the war.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the Vatican, “as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin!”
Earlier both the White House and the Kremlin had played down expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough. It now looks as if there will be Ukrainian-Russian talks, but the war will go on.
Prior to the call, the White House said that Trump has grown “frustrated” with the conflict and planned a separate call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in hope of making progress toward a ceasefire in the war.
Though Trump felt the call went “very well” and that “the tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent”, Putin said afterwards that while Russia favoured a “peaceful settlement”, compromises were needed to be found to “suit both sides”.
Yet the fact that the call is taking place at all is evidence that a rickety stop-start peace process aimed at ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine is underway. It may not be making much visible progress, but is in sharp contrast to the previous period of non-diplomacy under President Joe Biden when there was almost no US bid to end the fighting.
Another feature of the present diplomacy is that neither Russia nor Ukraine nor the Europeans want to be blamed by Trump for the failure of his peace efforts. They must cooperate, or look as if they are cooperating to some degree, and try to paint the other side as intransigent.
Since Ukraine’s survival depends on US military support and Russia would like an overall deal with Washington involving issues outside the Ukraine war, Washington has considerable leverage on both sides – leverage it is not afraid to use.
Vice-President JD Vance said prior to the Trump-Putin phone call that, “I think the president’s going to say to President Putin: ‘Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?'” He added that it “takes two to tango. I know the President’s willing to do that, but if Russia is not willing to do that, then we’re eventually just going to say, this is not our war.”
A permanent US walk-away from its peace effort is unlikely, but the prospect of this happening is intimidating for all parties in different ways. Putin is eager for success in Ukraine, but his overall relationship with the US is also crucial. He will not want to throw away the benefits of having a US president who is willing to talk to him, and who treats Russia respectfully as a great power.
As for the European members of the EU and Nato, they have still not produced their own peace plan for Ukraine because they know they could not agree on one. They are also in no position to replace the US as Ukraine’s military ally, despite their calls for Ukraine to fight on.
The fact that the fragile efforts now underway have not achieved very much is not too surprising. All negotiations to end military conflicts, such as those during the Korean War and the Vietnam War, were lengthy, complex and took place while fighting was still going on. Even ending a low-level war in Northern Ireland took prolonged negotiations.
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The central problem is that Russia’s objectives – keeping Crimea and Donbas, Ukraine staying out of Nato, and securing a politically neutralised and partially demilitarised Ukraine – are wholly unacceptable to an undefeated Ukraine.
It would therefore appear to be much in Russia’s interests to fight a long war and use its superior resources to gradually wear down Ukraine. Putin is wary about agreeing to a prolonged ceasefire that would devalue his strongest card in the conflict. Trump and Vance said as much – and they will have seen US intelligence reports on the military prospects of each side – during their famous row with Zelensky in the Oval Office.
But the military landscape is more complicated than this because, while Russian forces may be edging forward, they have yet to achieve a real breakthrough such as they saw in the Second World War, when first German and later Russian tank columns raced backwards and forwards across Ukraine. On the contrary, the fighting is more like the Western Front in the First World War with neither side able to advance, and, if they do, only at the cost of horrific casualties.
The heavy machine gun gave the advantage to the defence in 1914-18 and the mass use of drones is having the same inhibiting impact on attackers in Ukraine. By the mass use of drones, the Ukrainian army has fought the Russians to a standstill, though this stalemate might not be permanent. In other words, Putin may not be certain that Russian forces might win a decisive victory in a prolonged slog with Ukraine.
With neither Russia nor Ukraine having so far gained the upper hand in the war, the likelihood is for diplomacy and fighting to go on side by side.
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