In Ukraine, the Anxious Wait for Trump’s Plan to End the War

Brian Bonner's latest for The Cipher Brief.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and US President Donald Trump shake hands before a meeting in Helsinki on July 16, 2018.

BY BRIAN BONNER

President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of a quick end to Russia’s war on Ukraine is something that Ukrainians desperately want as the full-scale invasion approaches its 1,000th day. But they also want it to end on their terms and worry that any quickly arranged agreement will mean surrender.  

“If it’s just fast, it means losses for Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday. “I don’t yet understand how this could be any other way. Maybe we do not know something.” 

There were fresh hints over the weekend, via a Washington Post report said that Trump had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a conversation focused on “the resolution of the war soon.” The report included some details that might soothe Ukrainian anxieties – Trump warned Putin not to escalate the war and reminded him of America’s military presence in Europe. But the paper also reported that the call “raised the issue” of Ukrainian land, implying the possibility of a territory-for-peace swap. Trump has signaled privately that he would support such an exchange, and some of his surrogates have proposed ceding land to Moscow. Russia currently controls nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory. 

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected trading any of its land for peace. As Zelensky’s remarks suggested, the puzzle is how—and whether—a deal can be made that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty. 

“The manner in which you end a war is important,” General Philip Breedlove, a former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, told The Cipher Brief. “[Trump’s] words are, ‘I’m going to end it in a day.’ I’m not sure that’ll happen, but I think he does have a purpose to end it quickly. But ‘end it’ is the key phrase. What does that mean?” 

High anxiety in Ukraine no matter who’s in charge 

Many in Ukraine are alarmed by Trump’s return to power because of his regular and often blistering criticism of Ukraine and Zelensky and his frequent praise for Putin. But Ukrainians have also been frustrated by the Biden Administration’s hesitation, its self-deterrence – as in, what the White House hasn’t done, fearing Putin’s response – and what they see as a U.S. refusal to supply the military means needed for victory, or strong security guarantees for the future.  

Some Ukrainians also feel past Democratic U.S. administrations have burned them and are, therefore, at least open to what a Trump approach might bring. 

In 1994, in exchange for what proved to be the empty assurances of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nuclear missile arsenal in an arrangement brokered by the United Kingdom, Russia, and the U.S. under Democratic President Bill Clinton. Two decades later, in 2014, during the administration of another Democrat, Barack Obama, the Kremlin seized Crimea and instigated the war in the eastern Donbas with little consequence.  

For many Ukrainians, the hope now is that Trump wants to be seen as a tough dealmaker, a president who can stand up to Putin—all of which would preclude him from abandoning Ukraine. 

“There will be no capitulation of Ukraine to Russia during Donald Trump’s presidency,” former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a Ukrainian journalist after Trump’s election. “When I say ‘capitulation,’ I mean the disappearance of the Ukrainian state and its takeover by wild Russia. Because once again, due to Donald Trump’s personal ambitions, he will not want to have something like a second Afghanistan in his political history.” 

Is Yatsenyuk right? It’s impossible to know just one week after Trump’s victory.

At least three things are clear for the moment: First, Russia is making gains on the battlefield – both in eastern Ukraine and now amassing forces for a counteroffensive against Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk province. Second, in terms of any negotiations, Russia and Ukraine have staked out incompatible positions; something will have to give. And lastly, Trump supporters have outlined widely divergent scenarios regarding his plan for Ukraine. 

An optimistic scenario: Trump pressures Putin to back down 

Influential pro-Ukraine voices who worked in the first Trump administration include ex-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker, who served as special representative to Ukraine during Trump’s term. Several prominent Republican members of Congress support aid to Ukraine. They have argued that robust support for Ukraine and a strong stance against Putin fit with the Trump policy of “America First.” 

“[Trump] needs to tell Putin to end his war on Ukraine by January 20, or we will let Ukraine borrow as much money as they need to buy American defense products with no limits on type or use,” Volker told The Cipher Brief. In an interview published by the Kyiv Independent on November 6, Volker said Trump will aim to convince Putin “that it’s going to cost him too much if he pursues the war.” 

Volker, Pompeo, and others have floated the idea that Trump may support a massive $500 billion lend-lease program for Ukraine to convince Putin that he can’t outspend the West. The program would allow Ukraine to borrow as much as it needs to buy Western-made weapons. 

They have also cited Trump’s goal of increasing U.S. oil and gas production to flood the market and drive global energy prices down, which would hurt Russia’s ability to keep financing the war. And many in this camp have also urged fast-track NATO membership for Ukraine or other strong security guarantees. 

All these measures would be music to the ears of Zelensky and millions of Ukrainians.  

Among the problems in this “optimistic scenario”: almost none of this would be acceptable to Putin – presenting Trump with a deal-making challenge of the highest order. And to the extent one can read tea leaves at this early stage, the news last week that Pompeo – a proponent of these Ukraine-friendly policies – has been ruled out for a cabinet post is bad news for Kyiv. 

A pessimistic scenario: Trump forces Ukraine to give up territory, forget about NATO 

Given Trump’s frequent criticism of Ukraine during his campaign, it is far from certain that he will listen to the likes of Pompeo, Volker, and the others advocating a tough stance against Russia. There is no shortage of people who have Trump’s ear – including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Hungarian strongman Victor Orban, and Trump’s son Donald J. Trump Jr. – who, for different reasons, view Ukraine’s fight against Russia as unworthy of continued support. 

The outlines of a potential agreement attributed to Vance and other Trump allies would force Ukraine to cede all Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine—the 18% of the nation that it currently holds and claimed by Russia as its own, including the eastern Donbas region and Crimea, which Russia seized illegally in 2014. In this proposed plan, a European peacekeeping force would freeze and fortify the existing frontlines, preventing further Russian attacks and cementing the current territorial control in place. And in another bitter pill for Kyiv, Ukraine would be forced to abandon its NATO membership aspirations for at least two decades. 

The Ukrainian argument 

Ukrainians and their backers hope to persuade Trump that, at its heart, this is not a territorial dispute – that Putin wants ultimately to erase Ukraine from the map as an independent nation and that rewarding the Kremlin with Ukrainian territory will embolden autocrats everywhere. That, they argue, would also undermine Trump’s broad goal of stopping and preventing wars.  

In this view, handing Putin the captured Ukrainian land would only encourage the Kremlin to come back for more – more of Ukraine and then for Ukraine’s neighbors, many of which Putin has argued are part of Moscow’s rightful sphere of influence. As ex-Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk told The Cipher Brief, “Concessions…will actually make matters worse.” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has frequently criticized proponents of a land-for-peace deal as modern-day Neville Chamberlains “who are ready to sacrifice other people and other people’s freedom for their own peace of mind.” Chamberlain, the UK’s prime minister from 1937-1940, supported a policy of appeasement against Adolf Hitler. 

Timothy Ash, a longtime London-based analyst of Ukraine, said Trump needn’t give in to Putin – because the Russian president is in a relatively weak position. 

“Trump might not realize it, but he goes into potential talks with Putin from a position of overwhelming strength,” Ash wrote in his popular Substack blog.  

“Trump needs a Ukraine peace deal much less than Putin,” Ash said. “If Trump fails to agree any such deal, so what? What are the consequences for the U.S.? Not much. Ukraine has shown it is willing to fight, and even if the U.S. pulls financing, Europe has to continue writing the checks as the best way of defending itself against inevitable future Russian aggression.” He added that “if the cash is short, Europe can dip into the $330 billion in immobilized Russian assets to continue to fund Ukraine.” 

Ukraine’s Plan B: Fight on and find the funding where it can 

Trump may ultimately conclude that Ukraine’s war of resistance against Russia is hopeless and, therefore, not worth a hard-nosed negotiation with Putin or further American support. What happens then?  

Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $70 billion in military aid alone; overall, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress has appropriated more than $174 billion to Ukraine during the Biden Administration.   

The American funds would be hard to replace. Ukrainian officials have said they will have no choice but to fight on with whatever resources they and their European allies can muster.  

The U.S. has about $9 billion remaining from a $61 billion aid package approved in April. The Biden administration is rushing to spend all those funds before leaving office on Jan. 20. It has also given American defense contractors the green light to repair Pentagon-supplied weapons inside Ukraine – permission the U.S. had withheld until now.  

Individual NATO allies have pledged nearly $43 billion collectively in military aid for next year, and the Group of 7 (G-7) nations have approved a $50 billion loan to be repaid from interest on those frozen Russian assets Ash referenced. Meanwhile, the European Union has a multi-year commitment of nearly $54 billion in loans conditioned on Ukraine’s reform progress. 

Experts say this should be enough to keep Ukraine in the fight for another year or so – assuming all these pledged funds come through. Ukraine’s total financial needs are estimated at $100 billion annually, about half of which is for military expenditures. 

But Russia, with an economy 10 times larger that is now on a war footing, has the resources and weapons to continue the war for several years – especially with help from such allies as Iran, North Korea, and China. 

These circumstances lead Andrew Pryma, publisher of Ukraine Business News, to surmise that Trump will end the war in one of two ways. 

“Option 1: He will stop the war tomorrow where the frontline is. Trust me, some Ukrainians will complain, but most people will agree to that in a few months, and all the hate and disagreements will fade away. People will accept that as a fact and a new reality,” Pryma said. “Option 2: Trump will lend more money to Ukraine. He might give Zelensky one chance to win it, but he will give him a timeframe. If we cannot do it within one year, he will cut funding and end the war where the frontline is.”