President Trump says that he wants to “conclude an agreement” to “arrest this ridiculous war” in Ukraine. His call with President Vladimir V. Putin, and a meeting expected this week between us and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, have raised expectations that negotiations could end three years of fighting.
But how would these discussions actually work? Who would be involved? What could a matter look like?
The New York Times reported on these questions for the first weeks of the war in 2022, when Ukraine and Russia had direct talks that have failed to conclude a peace agreement.
To summarize what we know at this stage, here is our guide to potential Ukrainian peace talks.
Currently, Ukraine has few options to reverse the recent gains from Russia on the battlefield. This means that any agreement is likely to involve painful concessions from Ukraine, which could be considered as Mr. Trump’s enriching Putin. It also means that Russia will almost certainly lead to a good deal.
But Mr. Putin can have his own incentives to conclude an agreement. The economy of Russia risks inflation enamelled in the midst of enormous expenses for the war, while the military suffers some 1,000 or more victims per day. And a regulation on Ukraine could open the way to a reduction in Western sanctions.
The talks would be extremely complicated. Many doubt that Mr. Putin negotiates in good faith, while Europe and Ukraine fear that Mr. Trump will be tempted to conclude an agreement with the Kremlin above their heads.
However, Russia and Ukraine have made progress towards the conclusion of an agreement during the last negotiation, in the spring of 2022. And some experts think that an agreement is possible which would satisfy Mr. Putin while preserving a form of sovereignty and security for Ukraine.
Who is at the table?
The Biden administration sought to isolate Russia diplomatically and said that any negotiation on the fate of Ukraine should imply the Ukrainians. Trump broke out of this approach on February 12, when he discussed Ukraine in a long appeal with Mr. Putin, then said that he “informs” the president of Ukraine, Volodyr Zelensky, of The conversation.
Now, Ukraine seems isolated. Zelensky said he was not invited to discussions this week between the best aids to Mr. Trump and their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia.
European countries can also be removed – even if the total aid from Europe to Ukraine since the start of the war, around 140 billion dollars, is biggest that the United States has provided.
Trump said that he would “probably” meet Mr. Putin in Saudi Arabia soon. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey have already mediation between Ukraine and Russia on issues such as prisoner exchanges and navigation in the Black Sea.
Territory
Ukraine said that it would never recognize any change at its borders. Russia claims not only the approximately 20% of the country it already controls, but also a band of land held Ukrainian in four regions that it does not fully control.
A possible compromise: freeze the fights.
Russia keeps control of the field it has already captured but stops fighting for more. Ukraine and the West do not officially recognize the annexation of Russia, even if Russia retains its broader territorial claims. An agreement could stipulate that territorial disputes will be resolved peacefully at a given time in the future – say, 10 or 15 years old, as the Ukrainian negotiators proposed the status of Crimea in peace talks in 2022.
And a wrinkle: Kursk.
Ukraine still holds around 200 square miles of territory in the Russian Kursk region. Russia has rejected the idea that Ukraine could use this land as a negotiation program in all future talks. But if the talks start before Russia managed to expel Ukrainian troops from there, Ukraine could still find a way to exchange a Kursk retirement for Russia concessions.
NATO and EU
While Ukraine wants to recover the territory that Russia has captured, he also specified that its future security is at least as important, which means protection against renewed Russian aggression.
Ukraine describes NATO membership as the key to this protection. Russia describes the possibility that Ukraine joins the Alliance as an existential threat to its own security.
The Trump administration has already clearly indicated that it expects Russia to happen here.
Leaving a path open to Ukraine to join the European Union, but not NATO, could be presented as a compromise. Before the failure of peace talks in 2022, Russian negotiators accepted the language in the draft treaty which declared that the agreement would be “compatible with any subscriptions from Ukraine to the European Union”.
Security guarantees
In the absence of membership in NATO, Mr. Zelensky launched the deployment of 200,000 foreign soldiers in Ukraine to protect any ceasefire. Analysts say that the West cannot produce such an important force. Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, said on Sunday that his country would be ready to commit an unspecified number of peacekeeping troops.
But Russia wants its own “security guarantees” to ensure that Ukraine will not try to rebuild its military capacity and take up the land occupied by Russia. He wants to cap the size of the military troops and prohibit foreign from Ukraine in the country.
Threading This needle is widely considered the most delicate aspect of any negotiation. A team of experts led by Marc Weller, a professor of international law from Cambridge specializing in peace negotiations, written a potential agreement This is considering a compromise: deploying a small international force of 7,500 members of acceptable countries for both Russia and Ukraine to maintain peace on the front line.
The Weller proposal envisages immediate sanctions against each side if it restarts hostilities. It would allow Ukraine to hold joint exercises limited with other countries and to cooperate with them on the production of weapons and military training.
There would be no permanent deployment of foreign troops, but Ukraine could accommodate a small number of technical staff. And Ukraine would accept a ban on missiles with a range of more than 155 miles.
Ceasefire mechanics
The sustainability of any peace could depend on the nuts and bolts of a ceasefire agreement.
Thomas Grenminger, a former Swiss diplomat who participated in the surveillance of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine after 2015, reports three key questions.
The first agrees on the “contact line” separating Russian from the territory under Ukrainian control. Then, it would take a “disengagement zone” or a buffer, between the opposing forces, to prevent the wandering shots or the misunderstandings to escape in the fight. Thirdly, he said, it will take a way to take both parties to take into account the ceasefire violations.
The language in the “could be very technical” agreements On questions such as the disengagement area and the cease-fire application, said Gramminger, now director of the Geneva reflection group for the security policy. But, he said, that the language could be “quite decisive as to whether the ceasefire held up”.
NATO in Eastern Europe
Mr. Putin claims that his war does not only concern Ukraine, but to force the West to accept a new security architecture in Europe.
A few weeks before the invasion, he presented an ultimatum demanding that NATO stops developing east and withdrawing from a large part of Europe. And during his February 12 call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin warned against “the need to eliminate the profound causes of the conflict,” said the Kremlin.
This means that Russia is likely to make requests that go far beyond the fate of Ukraine itself.
American allies are likely to assert that a NATO retirement in Europe will increase the risk of a Russian invasion for countries like Poland and Balts. But Mr. Trump could be ready for such an agreement, given his skepticism about American deployments abroad.
All this will make an incredibly complicated negotiation. Mr. GRIMERGER, who worked with experts close to governments with an interest in war to play how talks could take place, sees at least three negotiation avenues: the United States, Russia-Ukrainian and Russia-European .
“You have at least these three levels,” he says. “There is no shortcut.”
Trump and Putin
Mr. Putin also has requests that go beyond territory and security. In the peace talks in 2022, Russian negotiators sought to eliminate Ukrainian identity, demanding that the country make Russian an official language and prohibited the places of name after the Ukrainian independence fighters. These problems are likely to resume.
Putin could also try to take advantage of Ukrainian regulations to obtain other advantages from Mr. Trump, such as sanctions. But it is his apparent desire for a great deal with Washington, according to some analysts, who could represent his greatest incentive to conclude an agreement.
“Putin would like to have a longer-term productive relationship with this administration,” said Rose Gottemeller, a former US under-secretary of state with negotiation experience with the Russians. “He needs to be willing to make concessions.”
Andrew E. Kramer Contributed reports.
