Trump and Ukraine: What Russia Wants, What Trump Could Do
Trump may be more than willing to trade with the Russians on NATO in exchange for less punitive demands on Ukraine.
There are a growing number of reports on what the forthcoming Trump administration will do domestically and what policy approach it will have globally. There have been a number of comments, some of them coming from administration wannabes, on what President-elect Trump should do about Ukraine.
Trump promised during the campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine pretty quickly once he took office. He has hinted he would do this by engaging Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Beyond that we have a guessing game.
The wannabes are throwing around contradictory ideas. Some want a ceasefire deal. Others talk about a cordon sanitaire and having it enforced by the Europeans. Still others concede the need to "award" Russia and let them hold onto captured territory. And some say that part of a deal might be to stop Ukrainian NATO membership for a period of time, perhaps 20 years.
No one seems to have any idea what the Russians want, or so it seems.
Trump is a savvy negotiator. He will want to know what his opponent wants and he will try and find ways either to accommodate or to leverage him.
Russia has been fairly clear about some of what it wants, but not everything.
What follows is my understanding of Russia’s objectives in Ukraine. Explaining them does not mean that I agree with them. Nor does it mean that all are of equal importance to Russia’s leaders.
Russia will insist on keeping the territories that it has previously annexed. Various solutions, a cease fire, a buffer zone, or some kind of territorial freeze will not satisfy Russia's leaders. Russia will demand formal recognition of its earlier annexations and seek to establish firm borders for these territories. This means that any negotiation about the annexed territories is mostly a matter of maps.
It is important to note that not only Ukraine, but also its NATO supporters will need to agree about the annexed territories. It is unlikely Russia would accept a deal strictly with Ukraine’s government, since governments can change.
There is some room for maneuver about territory, but not much, such as transit of people and goods, distribution of electrical power, oil and gas pipelines etc.
Another related issue is family reunification and various claims and counterclaims for destroyed property that have to be sorted.
Russia will also want guarantees of Russian language and culture, as well as protection of the Russian Orthodox church, all of which are under attack by Ukraine. Russia has insisted that it entered the war to protect Russian people living in Ukraine. Given the importance of the Orthodox Church in Russia and its influence on Putin and others, Putin cannot walk away accepting a deal that leaves Russian-speakers unprotected and vulnerable, churches occupied by the enemy, or other forms of official discrimination.
At the governmental level, Russia will want a more friendly government in Kiev. What started this mess in the first place was turning a somewhat Russia-friendly Kiev government into a Russia-enemy government, and by replacing Russian trade and security arrangements with the EU and NATO. It is doubtful Russia will agree to Ukraine's EU membership, and certainly will demand that NATO get out of Ukraine. It also means that Russia will want Ukraine largely demilitarized, probably by limiting the number of heavy armaments such as tanks, infantry fighting machines, artillery, drones (which the Russians may demand be removed altogether), and air defenses reduced or permitted only to cover certain areas.
Russia will be against any further deliveries of weapons to Ukraine and it will ask for all advisors and all mercenaries including contractors, to quit the country.
Beyond Ukraine, Russia will ask for lifting all sanctions. In exchange Russia will facilitate Ukrainian trade and commerce.
There also are issues about the future of the Black Sea that could be included in a negotiation, and issues about long range weapons in some NATO countries and in Russia. The big issue is lowering the nuclear threshold. Whether this can be done in connection with a Ukraine negotiation is not clear.
For Europe the big thing is to lower the potential threat profile Europeans (and Americans) think Russia poses to European security. Europe fears that Russia, now with a big and experienced army, will launch attacks in the Baltic States, or against Poland or Romania. Europe's attempts to strengthen its defense capabilities is a long term process, and there is no assurance it will ever happen. As the collapse of the German coalition appears to demonstrate, some European countries lack resources to take care of their own defense, let alone fund Ukraine's army and government. Europe therefore would be better off if there was a Russia-Europe modus vivendi that came with non-intervention guarantees. Russia, of course, will demand a resumption of economic cooperation and overall normalization of relations.
These are Russian "wants" that Trump will have to consider. It may be too much in one transaction, and Trump can expect serious resistance from the Zelensky government. Therefore any successful deal would work better if it was accomplished in stages, if at all.
US objectives for the war have been unilateral: Russia has to leave Ukraine. That won't be Trump's position, because he will understand that it is a non-starter, especially when the Russians are winning the war. But Trump knows how to sweeten deals, and the Russians will listen to some extent, so perhaps he can work out arrangements that could lead to the end of the conflict. One US objective that should be part of American thinking, but has not been, is to significantly reduce America's NATO commitment. NATO has been expanding for some time now, and it is the expansion that risks war with Russia. Trump may be more than willing to trade with the Russians on NATO in exchange for less punitive demands on Ukraine.
The Russians have to be very skeptical about whether the US/NATO/Ukraine axis is even 'agreement capable.' The Minsk agreement was used as a subterfuge to buy time to build-up the Ukraine armed forces; no one besides the Russians had any intend to honor this agreement. Trust is going to be in very short supply all the way around. Any negotiations, as Mr. Bryen suggests, is going to have many parts to discuss. This could take years (but first the fighting has to stop).
Good luck!
You say that no one seems to have any idea what the Russians want. That's not quite true--the Russians have been extremely open about exactly what their goals are for the SMO. "Negotiations" are not being sought to find out what they want, only to explore whether nor not they can be persuaded to settle for something less.
On the other hand (leaving Ukraine itself aside for a moment), what the West wants is pretty clear. They want something that allows them to "lose without losing." (Good luck with that.) But I don't think the Russians will agree to anything that can't be accompanied by some kind of verification and enforcement mechanism. The "trust" bank is broke now.
Trump's best move might be to just shut off the money and weapons spigot and tell Zelensky he's on his own if he doesn't want to negotiate. Europe is probably dumb enough to try to keep the game going awhile longer, giving Zelensky a tiny bit of time to negotiate before he collapses completely.