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Key Points and Summary: Donald Trump’s campaign promise to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours will face major challenges.

-Key sticking points include Ukraine’s territorial disputes with Russia and the issue of NATO membership, both critical to peace negotiations but deeply contentious for all parties. Russian President Vladimir Putin has little incentive to accept any U.S.-led initiatives, given Russia’s progress in a grinding war of attrition.

-Furthermore, Moscow views territorial concessions and Ukraine’s neutrality as non-negotiable, conflicting with Western and Ukrainian positions. Despite Trump’s confidence in dealmaking, the war is likely to be decided on the battlefield, not at the negotiating table.

Trump’s Ukraine Peace Challenge: A Deal Harder Than He Expected

During his presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump famously said he would settle the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of entering office. Trump is known for his bravado, and electoral rhetoric is very different from the policies that are actually pursued by political leaders once in office.

Still, resolving the Russia-Ukraine war is unlikely to be resolved quickly, even if Trump reserves more than 24 hours for this task because too many unknown variables are involved.

The first circle that Trump will have to square is the issue of Ukrainian territories that are under Russian control, including Crimea and four oblasts: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, that Russia annexed in late September 2022. Ukrainian President Zelensky was willing to admit that Ukraine does not have the strength to regain control over this territory but stressed the inability of Ukraine to recognize these regions as Russian territory.

As opposed to that, the Russian side pointed out that Ukrainian troops’ withdrawal from these territories is a precondition not for the final peace deal but for the start of peace talks. Moreover, most of the Russian population is unwilling to give up on territory that the Russian army has seized. 

The NATO Issue

The second square that needs circling and the central geopolitical issue of the ongoing war relates to Ukraine’s membership in NATO. In his statements, Zelensky expressed hope that Ukraine would get a security guarantee in the form of NATO membership. However, for the Russians, membership in NATO for Ukraine is unacceptable and one of the reasons for the Russian invasion. Trump himself has vacillated on this point as he first offered to freeze the Ukrainian NATO bid for twenty years for the sake of peace, only to recently express sympathy towards Russian security anxiety over having NATO on its doorsteps.

Even if Trump were to get Russia and Ukraine to agree on the issue of NATO, it is not certain that he can convince the rest of the US foreign policy establishment to drop the idea of Ukrainian NATO membership, which, while not realistic, is a principle that the national security elites in the US are not prepared to denounce.  

T-72 Attacked by Ukraine. Image Credit: Social Media Screenshot.

Putin has very little incentive to accept any of the Trump peace initiatives as there is growing awareness that the balance of power on the ground will allow Moscow to grind out a win in Ukraine through patient attritional warfare.

What makes Trump’s job even more complicated is that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria is likely to generate a perception in Moscow that any settlements that resemble frozen conflict, like the ones that Russia had in Syria with Turkey regarding rebels in Syria’s Idlib province, are dangerous and need to be avoided.

This will propel the Russians to up the ante in Ukraine and leave as little room for ambiguity regarding the war’s outcome. Looking at the war from Moscow’s perspective, too much blood and treasure was wasted in Ukraine to agree on anything less than Ukrainian acceptance of Russian territorial acquisitions and the neutral status of Ukraine. Both items do not appear acceptable to either the Ukrainian government or the elites in the West. 

Therefore, Putin is much more likely to order his troops to continue the operations until they reach the Dnieper River and solidify Russian control over Donbas. From that point, once Trump is sworn in, Putin will await to hear Trump’s offer. If he is unsatisfied with what he hears, Putin would most likely respond with a harsher counter-offer and possibly a potential threat of further Russian advance, possibly towards Odessa. A counter-offer that Trump’s ego will probably not accept.

T-90 Tank

Russian T-90 Tank.

In all likelihood, despite Trump’s dealmaking pledges, the conflict appears destined to be resolved on the battlefield and not at the negotiating table. The Ukrainian tragedy continues. 

About the Author: 

Vuk Vuksanović is a Senior Researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)  and an associate at LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think-tank within the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).