Kyiv has a simple prerequisite for a peace agreement with Moscow. Any deal must obstruct Russia from restarting its war on Ukraine five, 10, or 15 years down the road. Ukraine’s viewpoint is informed by history and by recognition of Russia’s belief that Ukraine is only a limb of its imperium.
The history is clear.
Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine relinquished its nuclear weapons. It did so on the promise that Russia would respect its sovereign borders. Peace held for a time. But when, in 2014, Ukraine got a government that Russia judged as too pro-Western, Russia seized Crimea and areas of southeastern Ukraine. Similarly, under the 2014 and 2015 Minsk I and Minsk II accords, Ukraine agreed to devolve political authority to Russian-occupied areas in return for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons. Russia immediately breached both agreements.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has taken an understandable lesson from these experiences. Namely, that peace agreements with Russia require more than rhetoric, smiles, and handshakes.
Ukraine is rightly demanding that any new peace deal provide for a “tripwire” force of European peacekeepers on its soil. These peacekeepers might not be positioned on the front line. Still, their presence would mean that the moment Russia recommenced conflict, it would also be at war with European powers beyond Ukraine. These peacekeepers would thus provide real deterrence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and real insurance for long-term peace. Recent rhetoric from Zelensky and U.S. peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had suggested that progress was being made here.
That rhetoric suggests Ukraine has said it would be willing to give up territory currently under its control (territory that Russia has been unable to seize after nearly five years of war and losing 450,000 soldiers) to secure these guarantees. And while long stating that Russia would not accept foreign peacekeepers on Ukrainian soil (think about why that might be?), there was a very slight glimmer of hope that Putin had moved his goalposts alongside Ukraine’s territorial considerations.
On Thursday, Putin put hope to the sword.
He lectured Witkoff and Kushner that “The presence of any kind of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would be absolutely unacceptable for us, as we believe this will be a threat to the security of the Russian Federation … What do we hear from [the Europeans]? We hear that after a peace deal, they will immediately deploy troops in Ukraine. What does that mean? And we’ve said before, that in that case, they would be a legitimate target for us, and the war would immediately resume.”
Brilliant.
A simple question follows naturally from this screed (notably broadcast on Russian state TV for all to see): What is President Donald Trump going to do to confront Putin’s obstinate machismo?
And if the answer is nothing, what on earth is the point of these peace talks continuing? After all, Putin remains utterly disdainful of Ukraine’s intrinsic requirement for peace. Keeping the talks going regardless would only waste jet fuel, prove Trump’s submissiveness to Putin, and allow Witkoff and Kushner to collect more Russian insult-trinkets.
‘ARM THE IRANIAN PEOPLE’ IS A SLOGAN, NOT A STRATEGY
The time has come for Trump to make a choice. He can exert true sanctions pressure on Putin’s economy, forcing him to choose between concessions for peace or political instability at home. Alternatively, Trump can give up on talks altogether.
Putin has very publicly smashed the ball into Trump’s court. Unlike in Helsinki, Trump must do more than grin inanely.