Navigating the negotiations over Ukraine

Trying to make sense of the current reset in US-European relations, I’m struck with the need to remember that a substantive peace-oriented foreign policy requires keeping several sometimes-contradictory considerations in mind at once, with the Russia-Ukraine War being the most prominent example at the moment.

• Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s territory beginning in 2014 and entering a drastic new phase in 2022 was and is a violation of international law and of Ukraine’s sovereignty – and realize at the same time that Russia has legitimate security concerns around Ukraine’s alignment with NATO.
• Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution was a legitimate popular protest and a reflection of democratic impulses, while still recognizing that both the US and Russia had external concerns and both powers tried to influence the outcome of that event in Ukrainian internal politics – and still wonder whether it was a good idea for US government to display their sympathy for the regime change in the way the Obama Administration did. (1)
• We can think that US efforts to encourage the development of civil society in other countries are legitimate and still think that Victoria Nuland is an incorrigible neocon who should be kept as far away from US foreign policy functions as possible. (2)
• We can regard Vladimir Putin as a rightwing authoritarian (which he is) and his regime as an oligarchical autocracy (which it is) while recognizing it is also a militarily powerful country that has definite ideas about Russia’s national security, some of which are pretty much like those of every other major country.
• European countries can see rational power-political reasons to keep the war in Ukraine going while also calculating that their own quickly-shifting security considerations mean that they can’t afford anything like the level of support they and the US together have been providing Ukraine since 2022. (Whether those reasons are legitimate or advisable is another question.)
• European nations can have legitimate, practical defensive grounds to build up their military strength but can also nevertheless use larger militaries to do very dubious things, like backing questionable French military operations in Africa.
• We can recognize that the Trump-Musk Administration may be talking (or momentarily talking) a more pragmatic view of Ukraine’s military prospects than we saw with Biden’s forever-war approach, and still expect that Trump’s chaotic decision-making may produce a gigantic mess in the process of negotiating with Russia.

Russia has a long record of taking a hard-headed approach to negotiations. Trump has a reputation for seeing negotiations as a zero-sum game, where one side wins and the other loses. When we look at things like his scatter-brained approach to the Gaza/Middle East situation or he and his hard-drinking Secretary of Defense giving the huge concession to Russia that they can keep conquered territory right up front and making a show of kicking the European allies to the curb in the process – well, the big thing is not how we look at it but whether Putin and his government will see this as a strong and serious approach to negotiations.

CNN’s Stephen Collinson puts it this way:

[M]ixed messages from the administration will fuel concerns that Trump will agree to a deal with Putin that validates the illegal invasion and will then impose it on Ukraine. While most foreign policy realists accept that Ukraine will not get back all the land seized by Russia, Trump was criticized for throwing away leverage with his call with the Russian leader. As was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said that a peace deal would not include a path to NATO membership for Ukraine and that no US peacekeeping troops would be involved. Some of those statements were later watered down by Hegseth and other administration officials.

Concerns were exacerbated by Trump’s warp-speed attempt last week to fully rehabilitate Putin, an accused war criminal, when he promoted Russia’s foreign policy positions rather than the West’s. The president, for instance, seemed to sympathize with Putin’s rationales for the invasion and called for his return to the G8 grouping of industrialized nations after Russia was kicked out over the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Trump’s rejection of the previous administration’s lockstep coordination with Europe over Ukraine and the absence of Kyiv’s negotiators from the Saudi talks also appeared to seriously weaken the Western negotiating position. European officials are likely to be far more sympathetic to Ukraine’s views than Trump — and so if they are absent from any full-scale negotiations, Zelensky’s position could be severely diminished.

A searing attack on European democracy by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security conference — and his decision to meet the leader of the far-right anti-immigrant AfD party just days before the German election — meanwhile shook European leaders. The speech was a clear sign the Trump administration intends to promote many of the populist movements that are evoking dark echoes on a continent twice destroyed by war in the 20th century. [Several of which are admirers of Orbán’s and Putin’s authoritarian styles of governance] And Hegseth’s blunt warning in Brussels last week that Europeans needed to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent” was widely seen as a sign of Trump’s antipathy for NATO and its security umbrella.

All of this is music to Putin’s ears, since it suggests that his status as an international pariah is over, and that he has a deal within reach over Ukraine that would cement his territorial gains. The divisions Trump has opened inside NATO is delivering on one of Russia’s most important foreign policy goals. [my emphasis] (3)

Deutsche Welle English has this current report: (4)

A commentator at the end of that segment mentions that Russia would be willing to accept Ukraine into the European Union but not into NATO. (5) And it’s true that a Russian government spokesperson has stated that publicly, without any time-frame attached. But this is probably just blowing diplomatic smoke. The EU does not have nearly the kind of military capability that NATO as an alliance has. But the EU Treaty does include a mutual-defense clause, one that on its face is more binding than that of the NATO Treaty. So, accepting Ukraine into the EU while the war is still going on, or even if there were a genuinely stable ceasefire, as long as Russia occupies territory that Ukraine officially regards as its own, EU membership seems a highly unlikely prospect.

The four most powerful European players in the arrangements and ones to watch especially on this process going forward are Britain, France, Germany and Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk seems to be treading carefully in the diplomatic situation of the moment, promoting increases in European defense capabilities, being cautious about sounding playing in to Trump’s provocative rhetoric on NATO defense, and taking a noncommittal stand on the idea of European peacekeepers in Ukraine. (The latter can’t be seriously decided upon before the major contours of the Ukrainian and Russian commitment are clear.)

"We do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine. We will ... give logistical and political support to the countries that will possibly want to provide such guarantees in the future, such physical guarantees."

Tusk warned against questioning Europe's alliance with the United States, after a tumultuous week that has left many countries fearing they cannot count on support from Washington and that President Donald Trump will do a Ukraine peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that undermines Kyiv and broader European security.

"Poland will support Ukraine as it has done so far: organisationally, in accordance with our financial capabilities, in terms of humanitarian and military aid," Tusk told reporters before boarding a plane to Paris. (6) [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Sinkman, Paul (2013): U.S., John Kerry Disgusted With Ukrainian Response to Protests. U.S. News and World Report 12/11/2013. <https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/11/us-john-kerry-disgusted-with-ukrainian-response-to-protests> (Accessed: 2025-18-02).

Shoichet, Catherine et al (2014): Kerry on Ukraine: Solution is tough, but situation better than yesterday. CNN World 03/5/2014. <https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/europe/ukraine-russia-tensions/index.html> (Accessed: 2025-18-02).

(2) Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call. BBC News 02/07/2014. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957> (Accessed: 2025-18-02).

(5) Reuters (2025): Kremlin says joining the EU is Ukraine's sovereign right 02/18/2025. <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-joining-eu-is-ukraines-sovereign-right-2025-02-18/> (Accessed: 2025-18-02).

(6) Reuters (2025): Poland will not send troops to Ukraine, says PM Tusk 02/17/2025. <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-will-not-send-troops-ukraine-says-pm-tusk-2025-02-17/> (Accessed: 2025-18-02).