There are two weeks to go before Donald Trump, elected to a second term on November 5, 2024, returns to the White House, but the outlines of the first “100 days” of his policy, albeit at the declarative level, are already quite clear. In addition to mass deportation of illegal immigrants, abolishing the education policy of the outgoing administration, “streamlining” the executive branch by cutting thousands of federal government positions, and other ambitious measures, there are also steps to implement one of the main campaign promises. Namely, to end as quickly as possible the “hot phase” of regional armed conflicts that could trigger political and economic instability in the world at large.

Trump’s promise to bring the war in Ukraine to an end through diplomatic measures is not the lowest on this list. Although the campaign promise to bring Putin and Zelensky to the negotiating table and end the conflict within 24 hours has already disappeared from the Trump team’s rhetoric, they remain confident that after January 20, 2024, the White House and the US State Department will have enough political and material resources to bring the hostilities to a relatively quick halt. And to convince Ukrainian and Russian leaders to accept Washington’s proposed roadmap, if not for a peaceful settlement, then for a long-term ceasefire (i.e., freezing the conflict). Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war during his December 7 meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Possible offer for Russia

According to observers, the compromise arrangements that Trump intends to offer to both sides do not satisfy either Kyiv or Moscow so far. Thus, Putin, although showing glimmers of interest in ending the conflict, continues to insist that peace is possible only if, as a result of the negotiations, Kyiv officially refuses to join NATO and if Ukraine and the West agree to Russia’s annexation of five Ukrainian regions. Specifically, Crimea, officially annexed back in 2014, and four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk (the former self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”), Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. Moreover, Moscow wants to receive these regions in their entirety within their administrative boundaries, not only those parts that are already occupied by Russian troops.

Although according to Reuters sources in Moscow, “Russia may also be open to withdrawing from the relatively small patches of territory it holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, in the north and south of Ukraine.” Basically, Putin is in no hurry. Western sanctions against the Russian economy have not yet had the expected effect, internal opposition to the regime is weak, and Russian troops continue to push through the AFU defenses in the east of the country, albeit slowly. And to him, observers believe, dragging out does make sense in order to gain more by pursuing further land grabs. Finally, the level of public support for the SMO (“Special Military Operation,” as Russia officially calls the war with Ukraine) is still quite high. For example, at the end of November, according to the Moscow-based sociological Levada Center,  the level of this support was 77% — despite the fact that a third of respondents confirmed that the country was still experiencing difficulties related to the SMO, and about 40% believed that real difficulties lay ahead. This may be why, judging by the same survey, support for the idea of peace talks in November 2024 stood at 57%, while support for continued military action fell to 35%. However, these figures hardly mean anything more than passive readiness of Russians to agree with any decision of the country’s leadership — to continue or end the SMO, but the latter, most likely, on the terms officially announced by the authorities.

Trump’s team seems to recognize this reality, which probably explains why the three options for a plan to end the war offered by his team to Putin, according to media reports, appear to contain more “carrots” than “sticks” for Russia. According to the first option, which was presented by Trump’s incoming Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg together with former National Security Council official Fred Fleitz, as an analytical report by The America First Policy Institute, a think tank close to Trump, calls for freezing the current battle lines.

The second and third scenarios, presented respectively by Vice President-elect JD Vance, and by Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting intelligence chief and ambassador to Germany, are essentially very close to the Kellogg/Fleitz ideas, except for some technical additions of varying degrees of importance. The Vance project also envisages the creation of a demilitarized zone at the existing front lines that would be “heavily fortified” to prevent further Russian incursions. The Grenell plan suggests the creation of “autonomous zones” in eastern Ukraine, without much detail as to what exactly is meant. (Purely theoretically, one can assume that it could be a territorial autonomy within Ukraine with expanded sovereignty; a quasi-state like the “Palestinian autonomy” under a de facto Russian protectorate, or a Russian-Ukrainian condominium with the participation of some external forces; or some third option).

The stick in all these scenarios is a threat to Moscow to dramatically increase military and other aid to Kyiv should it refuse to accept US proposals.

Incentives and warnings for Ukraine

In fact, this is what the outgoing administration of Joe Biden intends to do: according to media reports, it has developed a “last-minute” program that provides for an “avalanche” of military aid. In any case, this is what Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak. He said that by mid-January 2025, the USA intends to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery shells and a large number of missiles and armored vehicles, as well as to train new Ukrainian troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory.

And all of this comes in a package with a promise to transfer roughly $9 billion in military aid to Kyiv through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) and defense packages under the president’s authority. As well as a new set of sanctions against Russia, which, according to the same reports, are called to complicate “Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.” However, there are doubts in American media and political circles that the outgoing administration has enough time to utilize these resources. Just as it is clear that all this large-scale and, from the point of view of many in Ukraine, very late influx of weapons cannot be carried out in a matter of weeks, so it will have to be implemented — or abandoned — mostly by the new administration.

This scenario may be convenient for Trump’s team as a “stick” for Moscow. However, judging by what is being reported from the president-elect’s inner circle, so far they would prefer, in response to Kremlin, to start with incentives rather than intimidation. It is indicative, for example, that all three scenarios of completing the war in Ukraine that were produced by Trump’s inner circle, denied the NATO membership for Ukraine in the foreseeable future. The difference is that while in the plans of Vance and Kellogg/Fleitz this looks like an inevitable concession to Putin in exchange for his agreement to end or freeze the conflict on terms more or less satisfactory to all parties involved, the plan of Grenell, who was one of the few people at a September meeting in New York between Trump and Zelensky, presents Ukraine’s non-participation in NATO as a conceptual judgment (“NATO membership for Ukraine was not in America’s interest”).

Yet, this is precisely what Kyiv is not ready to accept by definition. Ukraine’s joining, or initiating the process of joining NATO, was a critical element of the “Victory Plan” presented by Volodymyr Zelensky in September 2024, amid a perceived decline in Western interest in Ukraine and accumulated war fatigue in Eastern Europe. Key points of the plan included recognizing Ukraine’s absolute right to be a member of any alliance, regardless of the opinion of “third countries” on the matter; large-scale investments in military production facilities in Ukraine; auditing and expanding anti-Russian sanctions; and diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

This plan, presented in the Verkhovna Rada and at various high-profile international events, as well as Zelensky’s earlier proposed “peace formula,” did not evoke much enthusiasm among Ukraine’s allies. Therefore, at this stage Kyiv is ready for a minimal alternative — to be “invited” to the alliance, and to receive some “guarantees of Ukraine’s security” from American and European leaders, and to have a “deterrence potential”, including an arsenal of conventional weapons sufficient to deliver a sensitive blow to the Russian Federation in case it violates the ceasefire regime. And at this stage — to obtain weapons and other resources capable of turning the situation on the front line and creating conditions for negotiations.

Kyiv would clearly be satisfied with such an arrangement if it became a fundamental element of Ukraine’s obtaining the status of “major US ally outside NATO,” which would at least partially raise the level of relations to that which binds the US, for example, with Israel, Japan, or Australia. However, Ukraine rejected such a partnership back in 2021, and although the question seems to have returned to the agenda after February 24, 2022, the chances of its implementation are slim. As a result, the position of the Ukrainian leadership in relations with the incoming US administration is rather weak.

Unlike Russian leaders, who still have a considerable amount of time and room for maneuver, Zelensky’s team has significantly less of these two resources. Ukraine experiences manpower shortages, growing territorial losses, a drop in public morale due to accumulated war fatigue, lack of prospects, and the feeling that Western allies are “preventing Ukraine from winning” by rationing aid. There is also outrage at corruption at all levels and a sense of injustice regarding the distribution of the war burden within Ukrainian society. Therefore, Zelensky has to be open to negotiations to find diplomatic solutions, especially since it is quite obvious that the public has such a demand.

Under these circumstances, Trump has much more leverage over Zelensky than over Putin, and it is possible that at some point the balance of “carrots and sticks” in Ukrainian politics will shift in favor of the latter. So far, the more or less openly articulated position of the Trump team fits into a simple formula: Kyiv should agree to negotiations with Moscow based on the White House and the State Department’s understanding of the optimal arrangement for a diplomatic solution under the threat of halting military aid, but boosting assistance if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses.

In a sense, such an approach stymies Ukraine’s president, who signed a decree in 2022 forbidding Ukraine from negotiating with Russia as long as Putin is in power. Theoretically, Ukraine could formally cede some of its territory if such a move is approved in a national referendum, which, judging by opinion polls, is unlikely. In other words, there is obviously a built-in contradiction in the vision of the Ukrainian political establishment: a clear understanding of the lack of prospects for defeating Russia on the battlefield and the need to seek a diplomatic solution, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the impossibility of removing from the official discourse the declared goal of resisting Russian aggression, that is the restoration of Kyiv’s sovereignty over the entire territory of Ukraine within the 1991 borders.

Today, Zelensky’s team does not have many other options. One of them is to continue to insist on inviting Ukraine to NATO with the help of the so-called contact group consisting of France, Poland, Great Britain and Germany, which was launched on December 9, 2024 by Friedrich Merz, candidate to the German chancellor from the CDU party, to develop a common position on ending the war. The Ukrainian presidential administration pitched the initiative as a group of countries that have long-range weapons, that are investing the most in Ukrainian defense production, and on which Ukraine’s accession to NATO depends.

Nevertheless, it is clear that eventually everything will depend on the US position. And it is still unclear whether Kyiv and Moscow are impressed enough by Trump’s reputation as a “hard pragmatist” on foreign policy issues, and by the set of “carrots and sticks” voiced by his men for each side of the conflict, to soften their unyielding positions.

Prof. Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin lectures in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and is Academic Chairman of the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies in Herzliya, Israel. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

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