News of the spectacular “spiderweb” mass drone attack on Russian air bases on June 1 will have been uppermost in the minds of delegates who assembled the following day for another round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul.

The attack appears to have been a triumph of Ukrainian intelligence and planning that destroyed or damaged billions of pounds’ worth of Russian aircraft stationed at bases across the country, including at locations as far away as Siberia.

Ukraine’s drone strikes, much like Russia’s intensifying air campaign, hardly signal either side’s sincere commitment to negotiations. As it turned out, little of any consequence was agreed at the brief meeting between negotiators, beyond a prisoner swap, confirming yet again that neither a ceasefire nor a peace agreement are likely anytime soon.

As with the similarly inconclusive meeting between the two sides on May 16, the lack of progress is unsurprising.

However, the broader context of developments on the battlefield and beyond offers important clues about the trajectory of the war in the coming months.

At their earlier meeting in Istanbul in May, Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to draft and exchange detailed proposals for a settlement. The Ukrainian proposal reiterated the long-standing position of Kyiv and its western allies that concessions on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country are unacceptable.

In other words, a Russian-imposed neutrality ruling out NATO membership and limiting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces as well as any international recognition of Moscow’s illegal land-grabs since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 are non-starters for Ukraine. While the Ukrainian proposal accepts a ceasefire along the frontline, it considers this only as “the starting point for negotiations” and demands that “territory issues are discussed only after a full and unconditional ceasefire.”

In substance, this is very similar to Zelensky’s peace plan of late 2022 which failed to get broader traction outside the capitals of Ukraine’s western allies.

The Russian proposals are also mostly old news. Moscow’s terms were only handed to Ukrainian negotiators at their meeting in Istanbul on Monday. Given what the Kremlin is reported to be asking for, this is unlikely to have made any difference to the possibility of meaningful discussions between the sides: the full recognition of Russian territorial claims since 2014, Ukrainian neutrality, and the stringent conditions set out for even a temporary ceasefire are hardly in any way more serious negotiation positions from Ukraine’s perspective than Kyiv’s proposals are likely to be to Moscow. In fact, what the Kremlin put on the table in Istanbul is more akin to surrender terms.

Ukraine is in no mood or need to surrender.

The wave of drone attacks targeted several airbases deep inside Russia on June 1, including some hosting parts of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. But this, like previous drone strikes against Moscow in June 2023, is more of a symbolic morale booster than signalling a sustainable Ukrainian capability that could prove critical in evening out some of the advantages that Russia has over Ukraine in terms of material mass and manpower.

Closer to the frontlines inside Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces also struck the power grid inside the Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. This may have an impact on any Russian plans for an offensive to capture more of these two southern Ukrainian regions that Russia has claimed since sham referendums in September 2022 but still does not fully control. But much like the drone strikes deep into Russia, it is, at best, an operation that entrenches, rather than breaks the current stalemate.

There is no doubt that Ukraine remains under severe military pressure from Russia along most of the more than 1,000km-long frontline. The country is also still very vulnerable to Russian air attacks. However, while Russia might continue to make incremental gains on the battlefield, a game-changing Russian offensive or a collapse of Ukrainian defences does not appear to be on the cards.

Kyiv’s position will potentially also be strengthened by a new bill in the US senate that threatens the imposition of 500% tariffs on any countries that buy Russian resources. This would primarily affect India and China, the largest consumers of Russian oil and gas and could cut Russia off from critical revenues and imports — if New Delhi and Beijing decide that trade with the US is more important to them than cheap imports from Russia.

Yet, US president Donald Trump, to date has been indecisive when it comes to putting any real, rather than just rhetorical pressure on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. It is, therefore, not clear whether the proposed senate bill will have the desired effect any time soon or at all.

By contrast, European support for Ukraine has, if anything, increased over the past months. It still falls short of Kyiv would require for a major shift in the balance of power on the battlefield, but it remains enough, for now, to prevent Russia from becoming militarily so dominant that Moscow’s current settlement proposals would present the only option for at least some part of Ukraine to survive as an independent state.

The war against Ukraine remains in a stalemate. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv appear to have the capacity to escalate their military efforts to the degree necessary that would force the other side to make substantial concessions.

Both sides are playing for time in the hope that their fortunes may change in the foreseeable future. For Ukraine, this would mean more US military support for Zelensky and more sanctions pressure on Putin, while Europe follows through on building up its own and Ukraine’s defence capabilities.

The Russian calculations will be different. Putin will need to keep his few remaining allies — China, Iran and North Korea — on side while trying to make a deal with Trump. This may be impossible to achieve, and the Russian dictator’s best hope might be that Trump does not impose any serious sanctions on Russia or its trade partners, let alone lean into increasing military support for Ukraine.

For both sides, a lot still hinges on Washington. The unpredictability of the Trump White House, much like the self-imposed restraint under Biden, makes it unlikely that the war in Ukraine moves beyond the current stalemate. What’s more, US policies have now become a major, and perhaps the decisive roadblock on the path to a just and sustainable peace because they enable both Moscow and Kyiv to dream of victory in a war that has become unwinnable.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on June 3, 2025.

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Two statements from world leaders this week bear closer examination. On May 27, US president Donald Trump took to his TruthSocial social media channel to proclaim that if it wasn’t for him, “lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia”. The following day the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, announced that his country would assist Ukraine in developing long-range missiles to deploy against targets inside Russia. Both statements are quite extraordinary.

Even by Trump’s own standards, the public declaration by a sitting US president that he is protecting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is unprecedented. Putin is an indicted war criminal who has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for more than three years after having illegally annexed Crimea over a decade ago.

There can now be no doubt left that the US has become an unreliable ally for Ukraine and its European partners.

This is the context in which Merz’s announcement of increasing defence cooperation with Ukraine becomes significant. While Trump continues to chase an impossible deal with Putin – even after threatening to abandon his mediation efforts less than ten days ago – Germany has doubled down on Ukraine’s defence.

Not only that, but as the EU’s largest and Nato’s second-largest economy, Germany is now also aiming to turn its Bundeswehr into the “strongest conventional army in Europe”. Its most senior military officer, Carsten Breuer, has published plans for a rapid and wide-ranging expansion of defence capabilities.

Germany is finally beginning to pull its weight in European defence and security policy.

This is absolutely critical to the credibility of the EU in the face of the threat from Russia. Berlin has the financial muscle and the technological and industrial potential to make Europe more of a peer to the US when it comes to defence spending and burden sharing. This will be important to salvage what remains of Nato in light of a highly probable American down-scaling — if not complete abandonment — of its past security commitments to the alliance.

After decades of failing to develop either a grand strategy to deal with Russia or the hard power capabilities that need to underpin it, achieving either will take some time. But it is important to acknowledge that some critical first steps have been taken by the new German government.

For Germany, and much of the rest of Europe, the investment in more defence capabilities does not simply require producing more ammunition or procuring more advanced defence systems. These are important — but what is also needed is a significant investment in developing manpower. This means either finding more volunteers or reintroducing conscription, which is now no longer a taboo in Germany.

Deploying a whole new brigade to Lithuania is an important signal to Nato allies about Germany’s commitment to the alliance. It is also a clear signal to Russia that Germany finally is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to containing the threat from Russia, which has grown significantly since the beginning of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The three years of Russia’s war against its neighbour have also highlighted the threat that Russia poses beyond Ukraine’s borders.

The war against Ukraine has exposed European vulnerabilities and its dependence on the United States. And it has taught military planners important lessons about what a likely future confrontation with Russia would look like. This is why Germany’s military planners have identified air defence systems, precision strike capabilities, drones, and electronic and cyber warfare assets as procurement priorities.

Beyond Germany, the signs have been that Europe more broadly is beginning to learn to stand on its own feet when it comes to its security. For the continent, the challenge is threefold. It needs to beef up its defence spending in light of the ongoing war against Ukraine and Russian threats to expand it further. Europe also needs to come to terms with the dismantling of the transatlantic alliance by Trump. And, finally, there is a growing populist surge that threatens the very foundations of European democracy and has the potential to undermine European security and defence efforts. This has been given extra fuel by the alignment of Trump’s America-first Maga movement with Putin’s Russia.

These are enduring challenges with no quick fixes.

The first test of this apparent new-found European mettle will be the war in Ukraine. Giving Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles against targets in Russia is not a new development. Such a move was first taken by the then US president, Joe Biden, in November 2024 when he authorised Ukraine to launch limited strikes into Russia using US-made long-range missiles, followed by similar authorisations from London and Paris at the time, but not Berlin.

Now, as then, how effective this will be depends not only on how many actual missiles Ukraine has but also on whether US intelligence sharing will continue which is crucial for targeting. What’s more, effectiveness will also be difficult to measure. In a best-case scenario, Ukraine will now be able to stave off Russia’s reportedly impending summer offensive.

The Kremlin has already indicated its displeasure and ratcheted up its nuclear sabre rattling. Trump, meanwhile, remains all talk when it comes to putting any pressure on Russia. By contrast, the Europeans, for once, are much more action orientated, which is another indication of the increasing rift across the Atlantic.

This does not mean an end to transatlantic relations and pragmatic cooperation, as demonstrated by the meeting between the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, with his German counterpart, Johann Wadephul, which happened almost simultaneously with Trump’s and Merz’s statements.

What it does mean, however, is that Europe’s security now entirely depends on whether key players on the continent can muster the will to mobilise the resources required to defend the continent against an aggressive foe to the east. Berlin and other European capitals seem to have recognised at long last that this needs to happen. Now they need to demonstrate that they can follow through with swift and decisive action.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 29, 2025.

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After a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on May 19, US president Donald Trump took to social media to declare that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately start negotiations” towards a ceasefire and an end to the war. He did, however, add that the conditions for peace “will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be”.

With the Vatican, according to Trump, "very interested in hosting the negotiations" and European leaders duly informed, it seems clear that the United States, and Trump personally, have effectively abandoned their stalled mediation efforts to end the war against Ukraine.

It was always a possibility that Trump could walk away from the war, despite previous claims he could end it in 24 hours. This only became more likely on May 16, when the first face-to-face negotiations between Ukraine and Russia for more than three years predictably ended without a ceasefire agreement.

When Trump announced shortly afterwards on his social media platform that he would be speaking to his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts by phone a few days later, he effectively mounted the beginning of a rearguard action. This was further underlined when US vice president JD Vance shortly before the Trump-Putin call explicitly told reporters that the US could end its shuttle diplomacy.

The meagre outcomes of the talks between Russia and Ukraine — as well as between Trump and Putin — are not surprising.

Russia is clearly not ready for any concessions yet and keeps insisting that Ukraine accept its maximalist demands of territorial concessions and future neutrality.

Putin simultaneously continues to slow-walk any negotiations. After his call with Trump, he reportedly said that "Russia will offer and is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on a possible future peace agreement", including "a possible ceasefire for a certain period of time, should relevant agreements be reached."

The lack of urgency on Russia's part to end the fighting, and, in fact, the Kremlin's ability and willingness to continue the war, was underlined by the largest drone attack against Ukraine so far in the war on the day before the Trump-Putin call. Nor has there been any let-up in the fighting since. And the fact that Putin spoke to Trump while visiting a music school in the southern Russian city of Sochi further suggests that a ceasefire in Ukraine is not that high on the Russian leader's priority list.

A large part of the Kremlin's calculation seems to be the desire to strike a grand bargain with the White House on a broader reset of relations — and to signal clearly that this is more important than the war in Ukraine and might even happen without the fighting there ending.

This also still appears to drive thinking in Washington, with Trump foreshadowing an improvement in bilateral relations by describing "tone and spirit of the conversation" with Putin as "excellent". Following the two-hour conversation with his Russian counterpart, Trump also seemed excited about the prospects of "largescale trade" with Russia.

Trump is on record as saying that there would be no progress towards peace in Ukraine until he and Putin would get together. Such direct interaction between the American and Russian presidents may well be critical to any progress in relations between the two countries. However, it is worth bearing in mind that very little movement towards a ceasefire in Ukraine, let alone a peace agreement, occurred after the previous phone call between the two presidents on February 12.

Part of this lack of progress has been Trump's reluctance to date to put any real pressure on Putin. And despite agreement in Brussels and preparations in Washington for an escalation in sanctions against Russia, it is unlikely that Trump will change his approach.

If anything, the outcome of this latest Trump-Putin call is an indication that Trump is prioritising the improvement of bilateral relations with Russia over peace in Ukraine.

In this context, the sequence in which the calls occurred is also telling. Trump and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, had a short call before the former spoke with Putin. Zelensky said he told Trump not to make decisions about Ukraine “without us”.

But rather than presenting Putin with a clear ultimatum to accept the existing ceasefire proposal, Trump apparently discussed future bilateral relations with Putin at great length during their call — before informing Zelensky and key European allies that the war in Ukraine is now solely their problem to solve.

This has certainly raised justifiable fears in Kyiv and other European capitals again that, for the sake of a reset with Russia, the US might yet completely abandon its allies across the Atlantic.

However, if a reset with Russia at any cost really is Trump's strategy, it is bound to fail.

As much as Putin seems willing to continue with his aggression against Ukraine, Zelensky is as unwilling to surrender. Where Putin can rely on China's continuing support, Zelensky can count on a European-led coalition of the willing.

Supporting Russia — and keeping the war in Ukraine going — is essential for China to keep Moscow on site in its rivalry with the United States. For Europe, supporting Ukraine has become an existential question of deterring and containing a revisionist Russia hell-bent on restoring a Soviet-style sphere of influence in central and eastern Europe.

In a world that has been much in flux since Trump's return to the White House, these are some of the emerging fixpoints. They make a US-Russia reset highly improbable. And even if it were to happen, it would not strengthen Washington's position vis-à-vis Beijing. Walking away from Ukraine and Europe now, will deprive America of the very allies that it will need in the long term to prevail in its rivalry with China.

It is not clear whether Trump realises that this is a predicament of his own making. Trump is fixated on a deal with Putin. But his Russian counterpart prioritises winning the war against Ukraine — not making a deal that will entail any compromises.

By abandoning his mediation between Moscow and Kyiv, Trump may have broken the deadlock in his efforts to achieve a reset with Russia. But getting this deal over the line will be a pyrrhic victory.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 20, 2025.

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When the Ukrainian and Russian delegations meet in Istanbul later today (May 15), territory — and who controls it — will be high on their agenda.

The meeting, when it happens, will have come about after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, offered to start direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv at a press conference on May 11.

Donald Trump, the American president and want-to-be peacemaker, pushed Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian counterpart, to accept this offer in a social media post, saying that "Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY."

And the Ukrainian president, still buoyed by a meeting with the British, French, German, and Polish leaders that called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, agreed shortly afterwards.

In the build-up to the possible resumption of direct negotiations, there was some hope that all three presidents — Putin, Zelensky, and Trump — would meet, but this has now apparently been ruled out, indicating that no breakthrough towards an actual peace deal is expected.

This is hardly surprising, given that Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiating positions still lie far apart. Russia has made it clear that it wants to focus on the so-called Istanbul communique of March 2022 and a subsequent draft agreement negotiated but never adopted by the two sides in April 2022.

The 2022 negotiations were mostly about Ukrainian neutrality and security guarantees, and they deliberately excluded the status of Crimea by relegating its resolution to separate negotiations with a 10-15 year timeframe.

When Russia additionally mentions what it calls “the current situation on the ground”, this is thinly-disguised code for territorial questions that have become more contentious over the past three years as a result of Russian gains on the battlefield and the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September 2022 (in addition to Crimea, which Russia annexed also illegally in 2014).

Russia's position, as articulated most recently by the country's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, is that "the international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is ... imperative."

This is clearly a non-starter for Ukraine, as repeatedly stated by Zelensky, even though there might be some flexibility on accepting that some parts of sovereign Ukrainian territory are under temporary Russian control, as suggested by Trump's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, and Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

The territories that Russia currently occupies — and claims — in Ukraine have varying strategic, economic, and symbolic value for Moscow and Kyiv. The areas with the greatest strategic value include Crimea and the territories on the shores of the Sea of Azov, which provide Russia with a land corridor to Crimea.

The international recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, as apparently suggested under the terms of an agreement hashed out by Putin and Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, could expand Russia's de jure control of the Black Sea, which could then be used by the Kremlin as a launchpad for renewed attacks on Ukraine. Such extended maritime control would also threaten NATO's eastern flank in Romania and Bulgaria.

Any permanent recognition of Russia's de-facto control of these territories is, therefore, unacceptable for Ukraine and its European partners.

Compared with Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions along the Sea of Azov, the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are of lower strategic value. However, there is a certain economic value in all four regions on Ukraine's mainland.

This includes, in the long term, the mineral resources on which the US and Ukraine concluded a separate deal on April 30. While there is considerable doubt over how good a deal this is, the resource potential of the Russian-occupied territories is substantial, including Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia. In addition, the four occupied regions boast a substantial labour force among their estimated population of between 4.5 million and 5.5 million people who will be critical to Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.

Beyond the strategic and economic value of the illegally occupied territories, the symbolism that both sides attach to their control is the most significant obstacle to any deal, given how irreconcilable Moscow's and Kyiv's positions are. For both sides, control of these territories, or loss thereof, is what defines victory or defeat in the war.

Putin may be able to claim that even partial territorial gains in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 short of full control of all four regions are a victory for Russia. But even for him any compromise that would see Russia give up territory that it has conquered — often at exceptionally high cost — would be a risky gamble for the stability of his regime.

For Ukraine, anything less than the complete restoration of the country's territorial integrity in its 1991 borders would imply recognition of defeat in the war. This would critically threaten the stability of the Zelensky government, whose political programme rests on exactly the premise of a return to the 1991 borders.

As a result, the Ukrainian leadership has become hostage to its own information strategy, which has placed the “return of all territories” at the top of the criteria for victory in the war. Although hard to achieve and easy to measure, this is a goal widely shared among Ukrainians, according to a poll conducted by the Razumkov Center in March 2025.

Apart from the potential domestic fall-out from any territorial compromises that Ukraine may be forced to make, there is another reason why the territorial question has become so intractable.

Beyond any strategic, economic, and symbolic value that the currently illegally occupied Ukrainian territories hold from the Kremlin's perspective, control over territory has always be an instrument for Russia to pursue its broader geopolitical agenda of exercising influence over its neighbours — from Moldova, to Georgia, Armenia, and Ukraine.

In the case of Ukraine, it is also important to remember that Russia's territorial claims have gradually expanded since 2014. Until September 2022, when it annexed the other four regions, Russia laid claim to Crimea only. There is no guarantee that any territorial concession from Kyiv now would put a permanent end to Moscow's territorial expansionism. It is therefore worrying that Trump envoy Witkoff, in an interview with Breitbart news, reiterated the US view that the two sides need to find compromises on who controls which territories.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine was not a war over territory as such but was part of Moscow’s agenda to restore the sphere of influence that it lost at the end of the cold war. This agenda is far from finished.

Focusing on territorial compromises, which seems to be the strategy of both Moscow and Washington, may lead to a ceasefire, but it will not address the fundamental issue of how to deal with a vengeful and revisionist autocracy on Europe's doorsteps.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 14, 2025.

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Although small in number and only tenth in a line-up of 13 foreign military contingents during the parade marking the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, the participation of Chinese troops in Russia’s Victory Day parade in Red Square, Moscow, on May 9 was a clear indication that President Xi Jinping is fully committed to his “no-limits” partnership with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Xi Jinping’s own attendance at the parade, which came as part of a state visit to Moscow, underlines that China is not only supporting Russia, but that Beijing wants this fact to be understood clearly in Kyiv, Washington and European capitals.

Travelling to Moscow and having his troops goose-step down Red Square was not a last-minute decision by Xi Jinping. Nor was the multitude of agreements signed by him and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, anything but part of a well-established pattern of deepening relations between Russia and China.

The strengthening of the partnership between Moscow and Beijing has accelerated since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

But the breadth and depth of China’s commitment to Russia at this particular moment is undoubtedly related to the broader upheaval in the international order that has been worsened since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The Trump administration, possibly spooked by market wobbles, has taken steps to restore stability. China and the US have agreed a deal to slash the import tariffs they have imposed on each other. But uncertainty remains — above all about how the complex relationships in the triangle of Washington, Beijing, and Moscow will work out and where this will leave the rest of the world.

On May 8, in the wake of the presidential meetings in Moscow, Russia and China also released a joint statement. It stressed the intention of the two leaders to “enhance the coordination of their approaches and to deepen the practical cooperation on maintaining and strengthening global strategic stability, as well as to jointly address common challenges and threats in this sphere.”

They reiterated this determination in their press statements afterwards. Putin emphasised that he and Xi Jinping “personally control all aspects of [the] Russia-China partnership and do all we can to expand the cooperation on bilateral issues and the international agenda alike”.

Beijing’s read-out from the talks was similarly clear on the alignment between the countries. The Chinese president reportedly said that “in the face of unilateralist counter-currents, bullying and acts of power politics, China is working with Russia to shoulder the special responsibilities of major countries and permanent members of the UN Security Council.”

This unequivocal display of how close Moscow and Beijing – and Putin and Xi Jinping personally – are is important for both nations.

For Russia, it remains important to demonstrate that western attempts at international isolation have not succeeded.

For China, the very public consolidation of ties with Russia is above all a signal to the US. China is keen to stress that Trump’s efforts to engineer a split between Moscow and Beijing, which the American president described as necessary to “un-unite” the two nations during an interview with US talk show host Tucker Carlson in November 2024, have largely failed.

However, beyond the glossy surface of the celebrations in Moscow, all is not as well for Russia as Putin is trying to make out. For all the public displays of friendship between their leaders, the relationship between the two countries remains highly asymmetrical.

Russia would not be able to continue to wage its war against Ukraine without Chinese support. Trade between Russia and China is critical to propping up the Russian war economy, reaching a record high of nearly US$250 billion (£190 billion) in 2024. Their trade has increased by more than 60% since 2021, yet it is only marginally up since 2023.

Perhaps more importantly, however, it is also China's diplomatic clout that is helpful to Russia. If Beijing had taken an unequivocal stance opposing Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, fewer leaders in the developing world would have sided with Putin.

In this case, Russia would probably have lost organisations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Brics group of emerging economies as platforms to further Putin’s broader agenda of restoring Moscow’s erstwhile status as a great power.

In that agenda, Putin has been moderately successful. But with South Africa and India’s leaders absent from Russia’s Victory Day commemorations, the list of attendees was shorter than at the Brics summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024.

Notably absent from the celebrations in Moscow was high-level representation from North Korea and Iran — two other key allies of Russia with whom Moscow signed strategic partnership agreements in June 2024 and January 2025, respectively.

Tehran simply sent its ambassador to Moscow to attend. However, it may have compensated Putin in a different and materially more significant way. According to reports, Iran is readying a delivery of launchers to enable Russia to use the short-range ballistic missiles already delivered last year. This would further add to Russia’s reliance on Iranian hardware in its war against Ukraine, which has so far been most visible in the use of Iranian-made Shahed drones.

North Korea dispatched a military delegation led by three-star general Kim Yong-bok. Kim is widely considered the commander of North Korean forces fighting alongside Russian troops in the Kursk region of western Russia, where Ukrainian forces seized territory in August 2024 as a possible bargaining chip in future negotiations with Russia.

Putin officially acknowledged the participation of North Korean troops in this operation in a statement on April 28. This acknowledgment came two days after he had announced the defeat of Ukrainian forces there in a highly choreographed and televised meeting with his chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

This demonstration of Russia’s close relationships with its three core allies — China, Iran and North Korea — is a double-edged sword.

It clearly indicates that Putin is far from isolated on the international stage. But it also signals that Russia has become a lot more dependent on these relationships than would befit Putin’s dreams of restoring Russia’s great-power status.

Neither, however, can be much comfort to Ukraine and its allies.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 13, 2025.

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The term that perhaps best describes the international impact of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House is “disruption”. His tariff policy, his abolition of USAID, his questioning of the transatlantic alliance, and his attempted rapprochement with Russia have neither destroyed the liberal international order nor established anything new in its place. But the prospects of liberal internationalism under Trump are vanishingly small. And Trumpism, in the guise of an America-first foreign policy, is likely to outlast Trump’s second term.

That the US is no longer the standard bearer of the liberal international order has been clear for some time. Trump and his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, appear to see themselves as dominant players in a new multi-polar world order. But it is not clear that a grand bargain between them is possible — or that it would endure.

Europe is particularly vulnerable to these changes in the international order. Having been able to rely for the past eight decades on an iron-clad American security guarantee, European countries chronically under-invested in their defence capabilities, especially since the end of the cold war. Defence spending as a proportion of GDP may have increased again over the past decade, but expenditure remains lacklustre – and investment into an independent European defence industrial base faces many hurdles.

These deficiencies predated Trump’s return to the White House. Addressing them will only be possible in a time frame beyond his second term.

With no dependable partners left among the world’s great powers, Europe’s predicament – unenviable as it may be for the moment – nonetheless offers an opportunity for the continent to begin to stand on its own feet.

Early signs of a more independent Europe are promising. In March, the European commission released a white paper on defence which anticipates defence investment of €800 billion over the next four years. The bulk of this will rely on the activation of the so-called “national escape clause”. This allows EU member states to avoid penalties if they exceed the normal deficit ceiling of 3% of their GDP. Once activated for the purpose of defence spending, they can now take on additional debt of up to 1.5% of their GDP. By the end of April, 12 EU member states had already requested that the national escape clause be activated, with several more expected to follow.

Defence is clearly the most urgent problem for Europe — in light of Trump’s scepticism about the value of the transatlantic alliance and the ongoing war in Ukraine. But it isn’t the only aspect to consider when it comes to achieving greater strategic autonomy, something that the European Union has grappled with for more than a decade. In other areas, such as trade and energy, the starting point is a very different one.

Regarding energy independence, the EU has achieved a remarkable and quick pivot away from Russia. It has just released a final plan to stop all remaining gas imports from Russia by the end of 2027.

On trade, Donald Trump’s America-first tariff policy has done significant damage to the global system. This has, in turn, created opportunities for the EU, as one of the world’s largest trading blocs, including greater cooperation with China, already one of its largest trading partners.

China and the EU clearly share an interest in preserving a global trade regime from which both have benefited. But their economic interests cannot be separated easily from their geopolitical interests.

So far, China has sent very mixed signals to Europe. Beijing has, for example, proposed to lift sanctions against some members of the European parliament who have been critical of China in a show of goodwill. But China’s support for Russia continues as well, most recently with President Xi’s commitment to visit Moscow for the victory day parade on May 9.

Standing with Moscow may benefit Beijing in its rivalry with the US by solidifying the no-limits partnership that Xi and Putin announced on the eve of Russia’s full-sale invasion in February 2022. But it does little to win the EU over as a partner in defence of the open international order that Trump is trying his best to shutter. On the contrary, in reaffirming China’s commitment to its partnership with Russia, Xi may well have lost whatever chances there were for a European realignment with China.

The complexities of the EU-China and EU-US relationships — a curious mix of rapidly shifting interests — reflects the EU’s position as the natural centre of gravity of what is left of the west. This is evident in the rapid evolution of the “coalition of the willing” in support of Ukraine, which brings together 30 countries from across the EU and Nato under French and British leadership.

Beyond Europe, Trump’s tariff policy has also given plans for a strategic partnership between the EU and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) a new lease of life. The CPTPP is a group of 11 Indo-Pacific countries and the UK, which joined last December. It is one of the world’s largest free trade areas, accounting for approximately 15% of global GDP.

Even without US and Chinese membership, a partnership between the EU and the CPTPP would wield significant power in the global economic system and could play a future role in shielding its members from an intensifying US-China trade war.

None of the steps taken by the EU and its partners on the continent and elsewhere require the breakdown in the transatlantic relationship that the Trump administration appears keen to engineer.

But it’s clear from speeches made by both the US vice president, J.D. Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that the current leadership in Washington, leans more towards political forces in Europe opposed to the fundamental values on which the continent was rebuilt after 1945. This leaves Europe few options but to seek more independence from the US.

A more independent Europe is unlikely to become a global superpower on par with the US or China. But it will be better able to hold its own in a geopolitical environment that is less based on rules and more on power. The EU currently enjoys historically high approval ratings among its citizens – who also support more unity and a more active role for the EU in protecting them from global security risks.

It’s increasingly clear that EU leaders and their partners have a unique opportunity – and an obligation – to carve out a more secure and independent space in a hostile global environment.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on May 7, 2025.

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After months of negotiations, the United States and Ukraine have finally signed their long-awaited so-called minerals deal on April 30. The agreement establishes a United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund “for the long-term reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine, in response to the large-scale destruction caused by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and in pursuit of a peaceful, sovereign, and resilient Ukraine.” This is an unusually unequivocal stance regarding Russian responsibility given US President Donald Trump’s allegation at a press conference on February 18 that Ukraine had started the war.

A statement released by the US Treasury after the conclusion of the deal went a step further, noting that the “agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.”

As part of the negotiations, Kyiv managed to exclude from the agreement any recognition of past US assistance as part of Washington’s contribution to the fund. Mr Trump initially saw the minerals deal as a way to make Ukraine ‘reimburse’ the US for past military assistance. Questionable a premise as this was to begin with, it was made worse by Washington’s completely fictional $500 billion price tag attached to the demand—around four times what the US had actually provided since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Instead, only future military assistance will count as a US contribution toward the fund.

The terms of the deal also acknowledge Ukraine’s sovereignty over its natural resources. Hence, the agreement does not give Ukraine’s minerals to the US but includes provisions for the US to purchase mineral resources and to benefit from investment in their extraction.

The fact that Washington and Kyiv managed to agree on final terms —despite last-minute uncertainties—is in itself remarkable.

The joint exploration of Ukraine’s resources after the end of the war was one of five points in the victory plan presented by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on October 16, 2024. While Mr Trump had already signalled an interest in such a deal when he and Mr Zelenskyy met in New York at the end of September, the first concrete proposal presented by Washington to Kyiv in early February was rejected by Ukraine. And after the very public falling-out between Mr Zelenskyy and Mr Trump at the White House on February 28, it looked like the Ukrainian president had gambled away his country’s future.

What changed most in the two months since seems to be Mr Trump’s calculus about how he can live up to his campaign promise—and most likely sincerely held belief—that he will and must end the war against Ukraine.

No matter how significant American concessions appeared to be, Mr Trump’s counterpart in Moscow, Vladimir Putin, refused to agree even to a ceasefire. And Mr Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, reiterated Russia’s insistence on its maximalist demands for a peace agreement, including the full international recognition of all illegally annexed Ukrainian territories, as recently as April 28.

After an apparently very productive 15-minute meeting with Mr Zelenskyy in the Vatican before the funeral of Pope Francis, Mr Trump now seems to acknowledge that this is unacceptable to Ukraine and its European partners and that he needs to increase pressure on Mr Putin to get a deal done.

All of this indicates that Ukraine is now in a much stronger position than it has ever been since Mr Trump returned to the White House for a second term in January, 2025.

But this will not necessarily translate imminently into a ceasefire or pave the way towards meaningful negotiations of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr Putin appears to remain committed to victory in Ukraine. Despite heavy casualties, Russian forces continue to make gains on the battlefield inside Ukraine and have all but eliminated Kyiv’s hold on territory in the Kursk and Belgorod regions inside Russia.

This is unlikely to change unless Mr Trump follows through on his threats of heavier sanctions against Russia and increases military support for Ukraine. There were some signs of the latter, at least, with the White House approving sales of military equipment to Ukraine worth $50 million shortly after the minerals deal was concluded.

Ukraine’s enthusiasm for the minerals deal is therefore understandable, but may still turn out to be misplaced.

One key demand by Kyiv—that formal US security guarantees be baked into the deal—has clearly not materialised. There is a certain logic to US treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s claim—first put forward in February 2025—that “an economic partnership would lay the foundations for a durable peace by sending a clear signal to … the government of Russia about the importance of Ukraine’s future sovereignty and success to the US.” However, it does not constitute the formal security guarantee required to credibly deter Russia from any renewed aggression. And without that, a future Ukrainian government might yet again find itself in a situation similar to February 2022 when, despite the presence of many American and European investors in Ukraine, the western response fell short of putting boots on the ground.

Without a ceasefire in place or a peace agreement on the horizon, insisting on an iron-clad American security guarantee was unlikely to be a winning strategy. It seems clear now that Mr Zelenskyy realised this just in time. This shift enabled him and his team to finalise the minerals deal with Mr Trump. This may not have brought Kyiv closer to the just and durable peace that Ukraine and its people deserve, but it has kept Ukraine—and its European allies—in the game for now and ensured continued US commitment not just in the war but also to a post-war future.

Buying time is a risky strategy for Ukraine when Russia still has momentum behind its campaign on the battlefield. It might, however, be a winning strategy to let Mr Trump realise that putting pressure on Mr Putin, rather than making concessions to him, is the key to unlocking the peace deal that has so far eluded him.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on May 7, 2025.

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After a second consecutive night of deadly Russian air attacks – against the capital Kyiv on April 23 and the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad on April 24 – a ceasefire in Ukraine seems as unrealistic as ever.

With Russian commitment to a deal clearly lacking, the situation is not helped by US president Donald Trump. He can’t quite seem to decide who he will ultimately blame if his efforts to agree a ceasefire fall apart.

Before the strikes on Kyiv, Trump blamed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for holding up a deal by refusing to recognise Crimea as Russian. The following day, he chided Vladimir Putin for the attacks, calling them “not necessary, and very bad timing” and imploring Putin to stop.

The main hurdle on the path to a ceasefire is what a final peace agreement might look like and what concessions Kyiv – and its European allies – will accept.

Ukraine’s and Europe’s position on this is unequivocal: no recognition of the illegal Russian annexation of Crimea or of permanent Russian control of currently occupied territories in Donbas. This position is also backed by opinion polls in Ukraine, which indicate only limited support for some temporary concessions to Russia. Along similar lines, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, also suggested that temporarily giving up territory “can be a solution”.

The deal that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff apparently negotiated over three rounds of talks in Russia was roundly rejected by Ukraine and Britain, France, and Germany, who lead the “coalition of the willing” of countries pledging support for Ukraine.

This prompted Witkoff and US secretary of state Marco Rubio to pull out of follow-up talks in London on April 24. The talks went ahead regardless, involving mostly lower-ranking officials. They ended with a fairly vacuous statement about a commitment to continuing “close coordination and … further talks soon”.

And even this now appears as quite a stretch. Coinciding with Witkoff’s fourth trip to see Putin on April 25, European and Ukrainian counterproposals were released that reject most of the terms offered by Trump or at least defer their negotiation until after a ceasefire is in place.

The impasse is unsurprising. Washington’s proposal included a US commitment to recognise Crimea as Russian, a promise that Ukraine would not join Nato and an acceptance of Moscow’s control of the territories in eastern Ukraine that it currently illegally occupies. It also suggested lifting all sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine would give up large parts of territory and receive no security guarantees, while Russia is rewarded with reintegration into the global economy.

It is the territorial concessions asked of Kyiv which are especially problematic. Quite apart from the fact that they are in fundamental breach of basic principles of international law – the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states – they are unlikely to provide solid foundations for a durable peace.

Much like the idea of Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, to divide Ukraine like Berlin after the second world war, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what, and who, drives this war.

Kellogg later clarified that he was not suggesting a partition of Ukraine, but his proposal would have exactly the same effect as Trump’s most recent offer.

Both proposals accept the permanent loss to Ukraine of territory that Russia currently controls. Where they differ is that Kellogg wants to introduce a European-led reassurance force west of the river Dnipro, while leaving the defence of remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory to Kyiv’s armed forces.

If accepted by Russia – unlikely as this is, given Russia’s repeated and unequivocal rejection of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine – it would provide at best a minimal security guarantee and only for a part of Ukrainian territory.

What it would almost inevitably mean, however, is a repeat of the permanent ceasefire violations along the disengagement zone in eastern Ukraine where Russian and Ukrainian forces would continue to face each other.

This is what happened after the ill-fated Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015, which were meant to settle the conflict after Russia’s invasion of Donbas in 2014. A further Russian invasion could be just around the corner once the Kremlin felt that it had sufficiently recovered from the current war.

The lack of a credible deterrent is one key difference between the situation in Ukraine as envisaged by Washington and other historical and contemporary parallels, including Korea and Cyprus.

Korea was partitioned in 1945 and has been protected by a large US military presence since the Korean war in 1953. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, Cyprus was divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots along a partition line secured by an armed UN peacekeeping mission.

Trump has ruled out any US troop commitment as part of securing a ceasefire in Ukraine. And the idea of a UN force in Ukraine, briefly floated during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko between 2014 and 2019, never got any traction, and is not likely to be accepted by Putin now.

The assumed parallels with the situation in Germany after the second world war are even more tenuous. Not only did Nazi Germany unconditionally surrender in May 1945, but its division into allied zones of occupation was formally and unanimously agreed by the victorious allies in Potsdam the following August.

By the time the two separate German states of East and West Germany were established in 1949, the western allies had fallen out with Stalin but remained firmly united in Nato and western Europe. The west German state was securely protected under the US nuclear umbrella.

The agreements made in Potsdam didn’t have the same implication of permanence as the US suggestion to formally recognise Crimea as Russian territory. The intention was always that the allied forces would pull out of Germany at some stage and restore the country’s sovereignty.

Most importantly, the allies did not reward the aggressor in the war or create the conditions for merely a brief interruption of a profoundly revisionist agenda.

What has driven Putin’s war against Ukraine is his conviction that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”.

The Trump administration deludes itself that it is applying the lessons of Potsdam by recognising Russia’s territorial conquests in Ukraine. Instead, it is falling into the trap of the 1938 Munich Agreement. Negotiators in Munich tried, but failed, to avoid the second world war by appeasing, yet not credibly deterring an insatiable aggressor. Sacrificing a valuable ally at the altar of a leader’s vanity is a historical lesson that doesn’t need repeating.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on April 25, 2025.

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United States President Donald Trump is finding the reality of negotiations to bring about a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine yet again less easy than he imagined on the campaign trail before returning to the White House for a second term. Having boasted about ending the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, he now finds himself close to the 100-day mark of his second term oscillating between threatening to walk away from ceasefire negotiations and promising that a deal was “very close”.

Neither is a realistic outcome at this moment.

Ministerial-level talks between the US, Ukraine, and the European coalition of the willing led by the UK, France, and Germany, to discuss ending the war fell through on Wednesday (April 23) after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cancelled his participation, prompting British, French and German counterparts to pull out as well and releasing their own proposals for a deal on April 25.

For Mr Trump, Ukraine is an important puzzle piece in his reconfiguration of US-Russia relations which are critical to his focus on China.

The US president is keen to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing. This strategy is often referred to as a “reverse Kissinger”, in reference to the late American grand strategist’s success of capitalising on the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s and normalising US relations with communist China. That Mr Trump and his advisers lack the strategic acumen of Henry Kissinger and that there is no Russia-China split on the horizon to capitalise on does not mean that rapprochement between the US and Russia is impossible.

On the contrary, if the terms were right, both Mr Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, might yet seal a deal to serve their interests – but such a deal will unlikely bring an end to the war against Ukraine.

The US is still the only player in the complex dynamics of negotiations with even a remote chance of getting a deal done — because of the leverage the Trump administration has over Russia and Ukraine. Past initiatives to end the war against Ukraine, including those by China, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican, never got any traction. Their sponsors generally lacked the ability or, in China’s case, the will, to bring Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiation table.

Mr Trump has so far focused on incentives in his dealings with Russia. He can offer Mr Putin much of what the Kremlin wants. Washington’s current peace plan includes the recognition of Moscow’s territorial gains in Ukraine, the lifting of all US sanctions and ruling out future NATO membership for Kyiv.

If Trump forges ahead with such a deal, the consequential weakening of the transatlantic alliance would also ensure, in the Kremlin’s eyes, a reordering of European security for the benefit of Russia. It would include US withdrawal from Europe and put limits on the size and capabilities of Ukraine’s armed forces.

It is not clear, however, what, if anything, Russia has offered in return — apart from relinquishing claims to territory that Moscow does not yet control.

By contrast, the US president has concentrated on pressure when it comes to the relationship with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mr Trump has been unequivocal that he will suspend military aid and intelligence sharing as leverage. This has made sure that Kyiv keeps engaged in negotiations and accepts giving the US privileged access to Ukraine’s mineral and energy resources and infrastructure.

The limits of such leverage, however, are clear: Mr Zelenskyy ruled out a recognition of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, proposed in the US peace deal. Mr Trump’s response was to lash out on Truth Social, blaming Zelenskyy for prolonging the “killing field”.

The gap between what the US has put on the table and what Ukraine and its European partners will accept remains wide.

If, in light of these difficulties, he did abandon talks, Mr Trump could still cut a deal with Mr Putin in an effort to pry him away from China. But such a deal — on Russia’s terms — would almost inevitably deal another major, and potentially fatal, blow to the American alliance system in Europe and further increase doubt about the dependability of the US as a partner among its Asian allies.

Both outcomes would be detrimental to US interests in its rivalry with China and are unlikely to be offset by vague hopes of the Kremlin realigning with the White House.

Alternatively, Mr Trump could turn against Mr Putin for failing to agree to a ceasefire and finally implement his earlier threat to impose large-scale sanctions on Russia. Unlikely as it is at the moment, this would preserve what is left of the transatlantic alliance, at least for the time being. It would also allow Mr Trump to conclude his coveted minerals deal with Ukraine. If it means the continuation of US military support and intelligence sharing, such an outcome would clearly be problematic for Mr Putin.

This appears to be a reality that the Kremlin is well aware of. It might explain the continuing engagement in talks with Mr Witkoff, who has now held several rounds of discussions with high-level Russian officials, including with Mr Putin himself in St Petersburg on April 11 and in Moscow on April 25.

Mr Trump remains reluctant to put real pressure on Mr Putin, despite being “not happy” with recent Russian airstrikes on Kyiv. The US president appears keen to continue to use the Witkoff-Putin channel to hammer out the parameters of an acceptable deal. And while it is not evidence of a Russian commitment to ending the war, Moscow’s similarly continuing engagement signals that Mr Putin is equally unwilling to walk away from negotiations at this time.

The Witkoff-Putin channel has enabled Russia to appear to remain constructively engaged in the search for a settlement of the war against Ukraine while simultaneously avoiding any concrete commitments.

Moscow has managed to shape much of the US narrative in its favour. The latest US ceasefire proposal, crossing several European and Ukrainian red lines, reflects the success of this strategy.

The release of the European counterproposals coincided with Witkoff’s most recent trip to Moscow on April 25, indicating that, for now, a win-win outcome is impossible to achieve for Washington, Moscow, Kyiv and Brussels.

However, if there is a deal, each side will find enough in it to sell it as a success — even if it falls short of their preferred outcomes. The odds for such a deal are slim but not impossible. If it were to happen, then it will most likely take the form of a time-limited, shaky ceasefire with vague commitments to an outline of a future peace agreement. As such, it would bring a temporary pause in the fighting in Ukraine but will still fall well short of the actual end of the war.

An earlier version of this analysis was published by Channel News Asia on April 25, 2025.

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After more than three years of war, the prospects of peace for Ukraine remain slim. There is no obvious, credible pathway even to a ceasefire, given Russia's refusal to extend a brief and shaky truce over Easter — despite the US, UK and Ukraine all signalling their support for this idea. And even if the considerable hurdles impeding a ceasefire deal could be overcome, a more fundamental problem would remain: none of the key players in the conflict appear to have a plan for an agreement that is likely to be acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow.

Less than a year ago, there were at least seven different third-party peace proposals.

At one level this is surprising. Less than a year ago, there were at least seven different third-party peace proposals. Among them, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican had their distinct visions for how to achieve peace. In addition, there was a multilateral proposal by a group of African states, led by South Africa, and a joint proposal by China and Brazil.

The best that could be said about these plans last autumn was that several of their sponsors had converged around the principles of the China-Brazil proposal by forming a Chinese-led "Friends of Peace" group in the margins of the UN General Assembly in September 2024. Remarkably — because it was in clear contravention of the western opposition to a ceasefire at the time — EU and NATO members Hungary and Slovakia also joined the group, alongside South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Türkiye, and other countries from the global south. By the end of 2024, this initiative, however, clearly had run its course and arrived at a dead end, as indicated in a short press release after the only other meeting the group held at the level of their countries' permanent representatives to the UN. A statement on what Beijing calls the Ukraine crisis by China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, on March 7, 2025, made no mention of the group. More importantly, that statement also seemed to indicate that China was no longer pursuing an active role in mediation, limiting its involvement to simply welcoming and supporting "all efforts for peace".

What these plans had in common was their primary focus on a ceasefire as a stepping stone to negotiations about an actual peace agreement. They were all light on detail of what a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would entail but were nonetheless roundly rejected by Ukraine and its western allies as favouring Russia. Given that a ceasefire would simply freeze the front lines and very likely make them permanent with or without a subsequent peace agreement, this was not an unreasonable position.

Except that what Ukraine proposed instead — and what its western allies backed, at least rhetorically — was hardly more viable. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's 2022 peace plan was already on life support at the time of the first "Summit on Peace in Ukraine” in Switzerland in June 2024. And when merely 84 of the 100 delegations attending the summit (out of 160 invited) supported a watered-down version of Zelensky's plan in their final communique without agreement on a follow-up meeting, Ukraine's peace plan was dead in the water. Its 'replacement' — Ukraine's internal resilience plan — with its focus on ensuring that the country can survive a long war of attrition with Russia is anything but a peace plan.

Among its European allies, the absence of a peace plan is similarly glaring, albeit for different reasons. Europe remains committed to supporting Kyiv, but the Russian war against Ukraine is only one — though clearly the most important — security priority for an emerging coalition of the willing among western backers of Ukraine. For them, it is important to keep Ukraine in the fight while they build up their own defences in a new international order in which the world might well be carved up into American, Russian and Chinese spheres of influence.

Such a carve-up is at the heart of efforts by US president Donald Trump who seeks to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, as well as a deal that would give the US privileged access to Ukrainian resources, partly as a repayment for US support in the war to date. The latter appears to be relatively close to conclusion after it initially fell apart during an extraordinarily acrimonious press conference in the White House on February 28.

The ceasefire deal Trump appears to envisage would divide Ukraine itself into spheres of influence…

The ceasefire deal Trump appears to envisage would divide Ukraine itself into spheres of influence — as recently suggested by Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg. Yet even such a pro-Moscow arrangement that would offer Putin control of 20% of Ukraine continues to elude negotiators, primarily because Russian president Vladimir Putin has few incentives to settle for less than Russia’s maximum demands and stop a war that he thinks he is still able to win on the battlefield, especially in light of Trump's unwillingness to exert any meaningful pressure on Russia.

At times, it now appears almost as likely that Trump will simply abandon his efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine. From a Russian perspective, this would be a preferable scenario compared to a ceasefire without the prospect of a favourable peace agreement reflecting Russian demands. The likely calculation in the Kremlin is that even when accepting that Trump’s monopoly of power may be undermined in mid-term elections at the end of 2026, Russia will have at least two more years to conquer yet more Ukrainian territory. Should Washington then make another push for a ceasefire, Moscow could claim its additional conquests as a price for Ukraine to pay for a settlement.

Even if Trump does not walk away from negotiations now, and even if his special envoy Steve Witkoff ultimately manages to cobble together a deal, this will still more likely look like a ceasefire than like a peace agreement.

The simple reason for this is that Russia's and Ukraine's positions on an acceptable outcome have not shifted. Putin remains committed to the full annexation of four Ukrainian regions (in addition to Crimea), while Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out territorial concessions and is broadly supported by Ukrainians in this stance.

On the western side, the reality that a peace agreement is close to impossible on terms satisfying all sides has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the western side, the reality that a peace agreement is close to impossible on terms satisfying all sides has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. To the extent that there are any joint efforts by Ukraine, the US and the European coalition of the willing, they are completely centred on a workable ceasefire. At a meeting of foreign ministers and high-level officials in Paris on April 17, discussions were focused on making such a ceasefire sustainable. While details of how this can be achieved remain unclear, the fact that there now appears to be a more inclusive negotiations track signals progress, at least on the process of negotiations. Whether this will lead to an actual breakthrough towards a sustainable ceasefire, however, will depend on their substance and whether Ukraine and Russia can ultimately agree on terms about disengagement of forces, monitoring, and guarantees and enforcement mechanisms.

This is an already incredibly high bar, and the bar for a subsequent peace agreement is higher yet. In the current stage of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, a ceasefire is clearly a precondition for a peace agreement. But the sole focus on the former will not make the latter any more likely. What's more, given Russia's track record of reneging on the Minsk ceasefire agreements of September 2014 and February 2015, investing everything in a ceasefire deal might turn out not just a self-fulfilling, but a self-defeating prophecy for Ukraine and its supporters.

This is an updated and expanded version of an analysis published by The Conversation on April 22, 2025.

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