Donald Trump’s Ukraine ‘One Day’ Peace Plan Just Smashed Into Reality

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Donald Trump has been clear since the early part of his presidential campaign that he would end the Ukraine war “in one day.”

He has been even more emphatic about seeking a negotiated settlement since winning the election.

But now, barely three weeks after assuming office, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has publicly put the kibosh on the plan advocated by Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired General Kieth Kellogg.

What does that rejection signal for the likely ending of the Russia-Ukraine War?

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Short answer: it’s not suitable for Kyiv – but even that ‘ugly’ deal is better than the alternative: continuing to fight until the Ukrainian Army suffers an outright military defeat in the field.

Here’s the sober truth: too few in the West (and especially in Washington) are still unable or unwilling to contemplate: the war is already lost for Ukraine, and there is nothing militarily that can be done to avert that outcome now. The best that can be done for the Ukrainian side is to conclude the war on the best of the ugly terms Trump can muster for Ukraine.

It is crucial Gen. Kellogg and Trump, along with his entire national security team, understand the ground-truth realities of this war before entering negotiations.

Thus far, they have not.

According to an analysis of the Kellogg Plan, Trump would seek to force Russia to the negotiation table by a series of carrots and sticks, starting with a ceasefire and then negotiations to end the fighting.

Key to the Kellogg plan is to postpone the thorny issue of NATO membership for Ukraine by a decade or more and the “concession” of allowing Russia to keep the territories it possesses upon the assumption of negotiations.

It would also offer a series of bilateral security guarantees for Ukraine and keep pressure on Russia by continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine until a deal is reached. British advocates have also offered U.K. troops as possible peacekeepers to patrol the final deal.

However, there is a significant problem with these plans: they assume the Russians would submit to such pressures and agree to the concessions.

They will almost certainly do neither.

Russia Response to the Ukraine Peace Plan: Bad News

On Monday, Lavrov rejected some of the key provisions, saying the Russians “are certainly not satisfied with the proposals sounding on behalf of representatives of the president-elect’s team.”

Last week, Lavrov said any talk of a ceasefire was a “path to nowhere” and that the Russian side would not consider one. What they would consider, he said, is what Putin declared on June 14th when he said the war could end if several key conditions were met.

Russia Sending T-54 Tanks to Ukraine. Social Media/Fair Use.

These include the complete surrender of the four oblasts Russia annexed in 2022, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, the declaration of no NATO membership ever for Ukraine, and security guarantees for Russia. Putin has said he is not interested in a ceasefire because he claims NATO would merely use the time to re-arm and retrain Ukraine’s Army and resume the fighting.

Further, an examination of the battle map shows significant portions of those four oblasts still under Ukrainian control. To reach a deal under Russia’s position, Ukraine would have to give up significant swaths of its territory that it had not lost to Russia.

That means to end the war on diplomatic terms the Russians say they would accept, Trump would have to agree to a deal that surrenders even more Ukrainian territory and publicly state Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO – both highly emotional issues that presently no one in the West or Ukraine will contemplate. Here’s the massive problem for Trump and Ukraine: these aren’t ‘maximalist’ desires on Russia’s part; they’re entry points for discussions.

Suppose Trump doesn’t agree to these terms. In that case, the Russians will simply continue the war, slowly destroying the Ukrainian Armed Forces, until eventually they capture by force of arms what they’re seeking to obtain by negotiations. Russia can militarily accomplish these objectives, even if at a very high price. And that’s what the Trump team must understand. Putin doesn’t have to negotiate. He can seize what they want by force, and there’s nothing Trump or Zelensky can do to stop them.