Majid Mohammad Sharifi – Assistant Professor of International Relations, Kharazmi University
Trump has promised to end the war and has even appointed retired American General Keith Kellogg to achieve this goal. It seems that the leaders and people of Russia and Ukraine, tired of the three-year war, are also demanding peace. Trump claims that he can make this wish come true, but everything seems to depend on Vladimir Putin’s will.
The war that Putin claimed would last no more than three days has now engulfed the two countries for more than three years. Ukraine has not given up and continues to resist, although this resistance has come at a high cost. What emerges from the battlefield is that Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to endure the attrition war that characterized 2024 for much longer. Ukraine’s main goal is to prevent Russian advances in areas such as the Donbas. Ukraine suffers from a lack of weapons and trained forces, and this has made Trump’s entry into the White House a significant factor in determining the future of the war since everyone knows that in the absence of US arms support, European countries have neither the ability nor the will to continue supporting Ukraine. Zelensky himself is well aware of this fact. The initial euphoria over the Ukrainian troops’ entry into Russia at the Kursk Bulge, which some analysts saw as a turning point in the future of the war, has now faded. The darker the horizon of military victories on the battlefield, the more difficult it will be to recruit and attract military aid. So far, Zelensky has refused to send men under 25 to the battlefield, but if the war is to continue for a long time, he will have to break this taboo. It seems that not only Zelensky but also the majority of Ukrainians have now accepted the fact that their army will not be able to liberate the occupied territories and the people living there in the near future. However, they still hope that, with NATO support, they will not lose a fifth of their territory to Russia and will also ensure the future of their country’s security. It is in this context that Trump has promised to end the war. Ukrainians hope that Trump will enter the campaign as a “game changer.” Trump certainly cannot end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, as he claims. However, Ukraine hopes that Trump will bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. Given the realities on the ground and the prospect of weakening US support for Ukraine, it is not far-fetched that Putin will initially refuse to negotiate. In such circumstances, the critical question is whether Trump will provide military support to Ukraine as much as Biden or even more than Biden. Zelensky was one of the first officials to congratulate Trump on his victory in the US presidential election, and he has long been in close contact with Trump. It is difficult to say whether these efforts will bear fruit, but there is no doubt that Ukraine’s options are very limited. Zelensky will have to maintain relations with his biggest supporter. Trump’s appointment of veteran Vietnam War general Keith Kellogg as the US special envoy to the Ukraine conflict is a hopeful message for Ukrainian officials and the Ukrainian people, as the 80-year-old Kellogg, who has previously visited Ukraine, has called for a stricter policy towards Putin in his articles. Kellogg has written that Joe Biden should have provided Ukrainian forces with all the weapons they needed to push Russia back from the start. Ukraine hopes that Trump will now follow this advice.
However, experts are not very optimistic about the peace talks, as Trump has not yet presented a concrete plan for an agreement, and Putin has no will to negotiate. This makes it difficult to begin negotiations, and the prospect of a final agreement is now considered very remote. The most important obstacle to negotiations is whether Trump has a powerful tool to put pressure on Putin. Putin hopes to win the war. Russian forces are advancing in the Donbas every day, and in November alone, they captured an average of more than 20 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory per day. It seems that Putin is seeking to seize more territory before the talks and present himself with more leverage in possible negotiations through them. However, Russia’s advances have come at a high cost. The three-year war has weakened the Russian army and seriously threatened the country’s economy. These factors have made the continuation of the war a difficult test for Putin.
Putin is keen to use Trump’s return to the White House to establish a stable security framework with the West, under which Russia while controlling the occupied territories of Ukraine, will prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has made Russia’s position in the Ukrainian war more aggressive. Putin will not easily accept defeat in Ukraine, as he did in Syria. On the other hand, accepting Putin’s demands would also be a major setback for Trump. These two demands are contradictory, which has made analysts pessimistic about the possibility of an agreement. The prospect of achieving a common position in the West to end the Ukrainian crisis is not very promising; on the one hand, the division among NATO member states and the presence of leaders who share Trump’s views that Ukraine will not win this war have increased the possibility of putting more pressure on Zelensky to accept peace. Robert Fisto in Slovakia, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey all follow a similar position to Trump. On the other hand, the widening horizon of war with the deployment of North Korean military forces to the battlefield and the increase in military cooperation between Russia and China, as well as the prospect of a vertical escalation of the war with the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia, have put NATO member states in a bind. Although the possibility of Russia using strategic nuclear weapons against European countries seems unlikely, the possibility of a nuclear war cannot be completely ruled out.
Taking into account all the above conditions, analysts draw three scenarios for the Ukrainian crisis:
First, not sending military equipment to Ukraine and asking it to end the war on the grounds that Kiev cannot win on the battlefield. It is clear that this scenario is very undesirable for Ukraine. In such a situation, in addition to losing part of its territory, Russia will not receive any guarantee that it will not attack again in the future. More worryingly, Russia may continue its advances and, by capturing Odesa, turn Ukraine into a landlocked country, a possibility that, in addition to military threats, will also expose Ukraine’s stable agricultural economy to destruction.
Second: A ceasefire in the conflict areas and creating demilitarized zones. This is the scenario that Trump’s representative in the Ukraine crisis, Kellogg, supports. Accordingly, the fighting in the conflict areas will stop, and neutral Western forces will be deployed once these areas are demilitarized. The problem with this scenario is that the conflict areas are large, and carrying out a peacekeeping mission is tough. In this scenario, it is unlikely that the conflict areas will remain demilitarized because if Ukrainian and Russian forces clash, the continuation of peace will face a serious obstacle. In the long term, preserving these civilian areas will require substantial economic and military aid to Ukraine to deter potential Russian attacks. This scenario is very optimistic and suggests the return of the occupied territories of Ukraine through diplomacy. Given Russia’s advances in Ukrainian territory and Putin’s current unwillingness to negotiate, this scenario seems far-fetched.
Third: Continuation of the war. The third scenario is the continuation of the war. In such circumstances, Russia and Ukraine will engage in a war of attrition. It seems that neither Russia nor Ukraine has the capacity to impose a final defeat on the other. In such circumstances, the intensification of US economic sanctions, especially the embargo on Chinese purchases of Russian oil, as proposed by Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, will pose a significant threat to the Russian economy. Trump hopes that by intensifying sanctions against Russia, he will force Putin to accept peace.
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