The constructive-seeming meetings at the White House on Aug. 18 between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and then both of them with key European leaders, were a welcome recovery from the U.S. retreat on Ukraine just three days prior, when Trump met in Anchorage with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A deal to end Russia’s war against Ukraine could emerge. It won’t be a just deal as long as any part of Ukraine is under Russian occupation. But it could be a sustainable deal. Getting there, however, will require commitment by the United States and the Europeans to Ukraine’s long-term security in the face of Putin’s likely resistance.
Apparent U.S. Retreat
Trump went to Anchorage having for months urged a ceasefire and more recently threatening intensified economic pressure on Russia if Putin didn’t agree to it. Trump had options for such pressure: Russia’s economy is vulnerable and the United States could work with its allies to squeeze Russia’s revenue from its oil sales, by far its number one export earner. But in their Aug. 16 meeting, Putin refused Trump’s ceasefire proposal and, during the leaders’ joint press appearance, repeated his usual maximalist demands that any settlement of the Russia-Ukraine War had to include the conflict’s “root causes,” which refers to a long list of Kremlin grievances, including Ukraine’s very existence as an independent, sovereign country.
In the face of Putin’s intransigence, Trump seemed to retreat, dropping his demand for a ceasefire and accepting Putin’s preference for a comprehensive settlement, which would entail letting Russia continue its bombardment amid ostensible peace talks. The administration even seemed to give up potential leverage. Speaking on Sunday television talk shows on Aug. 17, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled back from the idea of additional U.S. economic pressure on Russia, saying that it would hinder talks.
Rubio’s disavowal of the utility of pressure also ignored years of hard-won lessons about dealing with the Kremlin, or with most adversaries: doing so from a position of strength can work while unilaterally pulling your punches does not. At Anchorage, therefore, the Trump administration seemed to be trying to do more (reach a final settlement) with less (giving up the stick of economic pressure on Russia).
Getting a Deal
The key elements of a settlement have been clear for some time. The first issue is territory. The better territorial option would be agreement on a stable but provisional line of contact. The worse territorial option would be a territorial settlement including new, formal international borders. That would reward territorial aggression and undermine decades of U.S. policy not to do so.
The second and even more critical issue is security for Ukraine. Absent that, Russia can simply resume the war and take more territory. The talks between Trump and Zelenskyy and later among both of them and the group of European leaders seemed to make progress on security.
Security for Ukraine
Defending the Anchorage talks, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said on U.S. television talk shows Aug. 17 that Putin had agreed to “robust security guarantees” for Ukraine, including potential U.S. and European offers to Ukraine of “Article 5-like language,” though not NATO membership. Witkoff characterized the Russian offer as potentially game-changing. He’s right if Putin means it. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that “an armed attack against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all.” Putin’s acceptance of U.S.-European security offers to Ukraine, backed up by credible forces, would be a major concession. It would mean that Putin had dropped previous Russian insistence that Ukraine’s military be limited and foreign military assistance banned or severely restricted as part of any settlement, conditions that would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future Russian aggression and make any settlement meaningless.
The previous Western security assurances to Ukraine included in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by the United States, the U.K., Ukraine, and Russia proved empty when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. Any new assurances will have to be different. The first line of Ukraine’s defense will remain the Ukrainians themselves. But Ukraine cannot again stand alone: Ukraine will need help after a settlement to rebuild its armed forces, fortify new lines, and ramp up its own defense industries. It will also need a steady supply of U.S. and European weapons, hopefully with a better financing stream than European budgets. (Tapping directly into the nearly $300 billion of immobilized Russian sovereign assets that are mostly in Europe would be a good start.)
An “Article 5-like” security guarantee for Ukraine would go further: it would mean a serious Western military commitment to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. That’s a huge lift. Thankfully, the United States and Europe are not starting from zero. One pillar of such security backing for Ukraine could be the U.K.- and French-led “Coalition of the Willing” that has been exploring options for many months. The coalition includes several European countries that are, in principle, willing to consider stationing forces inside Ukraine to act as a reassurance force after a ceasefire or a general settlement of the conflict. While details are sparse, public statements have suggested (and senior European military officials have confirmed to me privately) that the coalition would not field heavy land forces in Ukraine but could station other elements, including air patrols over Ukrainian territory and other means to “secure Ukraine’s skies and regenerate Ukraine’s armed forces.” That would not be enough, however, to meet Article 5 standards.
The other pillar of security backing for Ukraine would have to be U.S. forces — not “boots on the ground,” but intelligence, logistics support, and significant U.S. air power, most of which the European partners lack in sufficient measure. If Russia attacked Ukraine again, U.S. air units would have to help defend Ukraine; that’s what Article 5 guarantees mean. It is not clear whether the administration is prepared to offer this but, if it were, that could be a major element of a sustainable settlement and a major incentive for Zelenskyy to accept other elements of a deal.
Russian acceptance of U.S.-European security guarantees for Ukraine won’t be as straightforward as Witkoff suggested, however. Instead, Putin may have been deceptive, offering, for example, that Russia would join the United States and Europe as a guarantor of Ukraine’s security. That would mean that Russia would have a veto over U.S. and European security assistance to Ukraine, exactly the kind of control that Putin might accept at a minimum and a far cry from Article 5 or any other meaningful security for Ukraine. Such distinctions are stuff that experienced diplomats would catch but less experienced negotiators might not. In any case, it is hard to believe, Witkoff’s assertions notwithstanding, that Russia is prepared to accept Western military units helping defend Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already rejected the possibility of any NATO country forces inside Ukraine. Security for Ukraine will require the United States to push past Moscow’s objections rather than ask its permission as if it owns Ukraine.
Territory
The Trump administration has referred for some time to possible “land swaps,” though it has not defined what these might mean. The Russian position reportedly includes a demand that Ukraine withdraw completely from the portions of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that Russia has been unable to conquer after three years of war. It is not clear whether Russia is prepared in exchange to withdraw from any other parts of Ukrainian territory that it has illegally seized.
The best option on the issue of territory would be to agree on a demarcation line, either the existing front line or an adjusted one, without formal legal recognition of annexation. That was the basis for the Cold War status quo between East and West Germany and the Armistice line that ended the Korean War in 1953. A provisional demarcation line, not time-limited, could be part of a final settlement.
Another, and uglier, option could be a legally binding, permanent “swap” of territory, as morally and legally repugnant as that is. The Russians probably would demand all of Luhansk and Donetsk. In exchange, if a “swap” means anything other than a cave, they would have to depart from all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that they now partly occupy. They would keep Crimea as well. Such an agreement or a variation would reward the aggressor – and signal U.S. weakness. Whether Ukrainians would ever accept it would depend on whether it is accompanied by security guarantees that are truly the equivalent of NATO’s Article 5. It would mean a bitter but perhaps enduring peace.
There is precedent for such an ugly peace. Finland defended itself against Soviet aggression during the 1939-40 “Winter War.” The Finns did so with such tenacity that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin dropped his initial objective — installation of a communist regime in Helsinki — and settled for grabbing a large part of Finnish territory, including the Finnish city of Vyborg, the country’s second-largest at the time, as a price of peace. The Finns agreed. They lost land and people – Vyborg’s population was evacuated to unoccupied Finland — but saved their country. Finns to this day are proud of their resistance, as they should be, and rightly regard the end to that war as the best option available at the time. Finnish President Alexander Stubb referred to this while at the White House meeting. Ukraine deserves better, as did the Finns, but just as Finland did then, Ukraine may feel compelled to agree to save unoccupied or free Ukraine.
Getting to any deal – fairer or uglier – between Ukraine and Russia will require the United States and Europe to stand by the courageous leaders and people of Ukraine and stare down Russia’s predictable demands. Notwithstanding Rubio’s rejection of more economic pressure, the United States and key European leaders will need all the tools they’ve got to get there.
