The war had gone on too long. Russian troops had been making steady gains in eastern Ukraine while Ukrainians were unable to hold the line. The war’s humanitarian costs were mounting in the form of displaced people and destroyed property. The countries supporting Ukraine were eager to see the conflict over once and for all. It was time to negotiate, to accept what had happened on the battlefield, and to see what the warring parties would accept. Desperate for a deal, the negotiators came up with a settlement.
This might seem like a scenario from 2025. It was, in fact, the story of how hostilities ceased (or were suspended) in 2014. Russia had annexed Crimea in March 2014, infiltrated eastern Ukraine with irregular forces in the spring, and sent its soldiers directly into combat over the summer. After Ukraine suffered a series of setbacks, diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany got to work in Minsk, Belarus—hence, “Minsk” diplomacy, which paved the way to the war’s second and much more brutal installment. This was Russia’s massive invasion in February 2022.
The war had gone on too long. Russian troops had been making steady gains in eastern Ukraine while Ukrainians were unable to hold the line. The war’s humanitarian costs were mounting in the form of displaced people and destroyed property. The countries supporting Ukraine were eager to see the conflict over once and for all. It was time to negotiate, to accept what had happened on the battlefield, and to see what the warring parties would accept. Desperate for a deal, the negotiators came up with a settlement.
This might seem like a scenario from 2025. It was, in fact, the story of how hostilities ceased (or were suspended) in 2014. Russia had annexed Crimea in March 2014, infiltrated eastern Ukraine with irregular forces in the spring, and sent its soldiers directly into combat over the summer. After Ukraine suffered a series of setbacks, diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany got to work in Minsk, Belarus—hence, “Minsk” diplomacy, which paved the way to the war’s second and much more brutal installment. This was Russia’s massive invasion in February 2022.
Minsk should haunt U.S. policymakers. Its dispiriting example should be studied carefully before a new season of negotiations begins. Minsk reflected France’s and Germany’s lack of leverage. The late-night discussions in the Belarusian capital were not much more than photo-ops in the end. Ukraine and its supporters cannot afford to repeat the exercise. They should internalize the following lessons: that no deal is better than a bad deal; that one must know the nature and limits of one’s leverage; and that not every negotiation need be high-profile and media-driven.
Today’s diplomacy will have to synthesize two separate truths. The first is that Russia remains politically stable and militarily persistent, the stirrings of economic difficulty and of military fatigue notwithstanding. The second is that Ukraine should not and will not surrender. Placed side by side, these two truths recommend a phased diplomacy, prioritizing de-escalation over grand but fragile agreements. It calls for a diplomacy less of miles than of inches.
Unlike in 2017, Donald Trump has the political capital to negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin in his second term. Between 2016 and 2020, congressional Republicans were willing to vote for sanctions on Russia even if this angered the president. In 2025, the Republican Party are operating in tandem on foreign policy, and on the campaign trail Trump frequently stated the need for a negotiated settlement to the war.
Trump faces a host of challenges. One is that Ukraine will not necessarily do his bidding. The United States is a major military backer of Ukraine, but Ukraine has its own military, its own defense industry, and the aid of countries (such as Poland) that are desperate to prevent a Russian victory. Another is that China will play some kind of role in war termination, not least because Beijing will be instrumental to Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. There is almost no precedent for the United States and China conducting negotiations that are not bilateral. Although Trump has floated the idea of cooperating diplomatically with China on Ukraine, it would be very challenging in practice.
The biggest obstacle to successful negotiations will be Russia itself. Putin has managed to prolong the war longer than many expected. In early 2022, his own advisors warned of the financial panic, inflation, and shortages of essential goods that war would bring. None of these predictions fully materialized, though some are now beginning to take effect. Back in 2022, rising energy demand and prices yielded huge export earnings, keeping Russia afloat. So did a capable team of financial managers.
Russia’s survival convinced Putin that the war made sense. The Kremlin has made the war its top priority, pouring money into the military and defense industries. Russia boasts high GDP growth (3.6 percent in 2023, 3.9 percent projected for 2024), low unemployment, and (seemingly) overwhelming support for what Putin calls a “special military operation.” Beneath this facade, inflation has now entered double digits, and interest rates have hit record highs. The civilian sector is facing labor shortages, tax increases, the risk of stagflation, and a banking crisis. Yet the war economy continues to expand.
Few Russians blame Russia’s mounting problems on the war. Propaganda and strict censorship inhibit such thinking. The Kremlin also shields society through “commercial mobilization,” keeping the war offstage. Soldiers are not widely seen as heroes; most are paid volunteers or pardoned convicts; and draft evaders enjoy public approval. Yet, for much of society, the war is far away. Many live within a “war bubble.”
Despite losing part of its own territory to Ukraine in August 2024, Russia has been making territorial gains in Ukraine over the past year—at the staggering cost of some 500 lives a day, according to the U.S. government. Politically secure and far from being on the defensive, Putin will approach the bargaining table with high demands; he is anything but cornered.
U.S.-led negotiations over Ukraine are not a bad idea, per se. U.S. negotiators should take two realities into account. One is that Putin’s monstrous decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 has weakened Russia. Even Putin’s loyal elites privately recognize this. The war has cut Russia off from Europe, consuming so much of the Kremlin’s time, attention, and military resources that Russia’s position in Syria and in the South Caucasus (as Armenia’s ally) has eroded in the last two years. Russia may be gaining territory in Ukraine, but it is not moving from success to success.
The second reality is that Ukraine will not be conquered. Ukraine, which is struggling to hold ground, has been suffering from a mobilization crisis. Having endured almost three years of war against one of the world’s major military powers, however, Ukraine still controls some 80 percent of its territory. Though Russia continues to absorb Ukrainian territory, it has taken and held only one Ukrainian city, Mariupol, which was destroyed in the war. Ukraine’s political and social structures have withstood incredible pressure. Like Russia, Ukraine is not getting stronger over time, but it has no reason and no desire to surrender.
A diplomatic method can be built on these two realities. There should be no drive to agree on a document, which Russia is unlikely to honor, and perhaps no public component to the diplomacy at all. When President Joe Biden met with Putin in the summer of 2021, Putin was probably using the summit to deceive Biden, to hide a war that Russia was secretly preparing. By setting up high expectations, a Putin-Trump summit on Ukraine would be a recipe for frustration or, worse, a chance for Putin to dangle false promises—a phantom peace—before the president.
As the White House is well aware, it will need to amass leverage before negotiating. The Trump administration has threatened to lower oil prices to push Russia into making concessions. Economic pressure alone is unlikely to sway Putin, who has aligned Russia’s economy with his military ambitions. Trump, who is reluctant to approve additional aid for Ukraine, will find that such restraint limits his negotiating power. The more credible the U.S. threat of economic and possibly of military escalation, the stronger its position at the table will be.
Timing will also dictate diplomatic success. Moscow knows that Trump is eager to resolve Ukraine swiftly and thus to keep his focus on the Western Hemisphere and China. It is crucial not to conceive of the war’s end as a singular act, the waving of a wand or the flipping of a switch. In 2025, Russia is on the march. Even if Ukraine were to have the battlefield momentum, which it does not, Russia would remain an undefeatable nuclear power with vast miliary assets. Leverage over Russia is so far from absolute that Washington will have to be flexible, pragmatic, and content with partial gains and partial accomplishments.
Gains and accomplishments are still achievable in this seemingly interminable war. They would amount to the war growing smaller. The Trump administration could enable a series of interactions between Ukraine and Russia, whereby Russia would make a concession—fewer attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid, fewer attacks on civilians—for something in return. Ukraine has concessions to offer, given that it has the potential to strike deep within Russian territory and has held Russian territory for almost half a year. Were Russia to start scaling back the war, the United States could think of rolling back some of its sanctions. None of this would have to be negotiated or agreed to publicly.
Week-by-week and month-by-month agreements to minimize the war would reduce human suffering in Ukraine and restore a degree of normalization. They would also pull the U.S.-Russian relationship back from the brink. A subtle, behind-the-scenes diplomacy on the war could deliver something else to the Trump team: the capacity to compartmentalize relations with Putin’s Russia. Broadly speaking, the United States and Russia would agree to disagree on Ukraine, while establishing certain rules of engagement, and at the same time they could conduct negotiations on arms control and on strategic stability, introducing at least some structure and some procedure. The United States and Russia cannot escape the responsibility of being the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
The iconic moments of Cold War diplomacy were the larger-than-life meetings. There were Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam, Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow and in Washington, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik and Geneva. But it was a checkered, unstable reality—the espionage and the proxy wars on the one hand and the grinding diplomatic back-and-forth on the other—that really drove events. Cold War diplomacy never resulted in definite or lasting agreements. Even the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the masterpiece of Cold War diplomacy, when the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on Europe’s borders, did not stop the United States from simultaneously waging the Vietnam War. Nor did it prevent the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan in 1979.
The Cold War generated never-ending crisis management, something that will have to be replicated in the future.
A diplomatic approach that concedes neither too much nor too little will serve the long-term goal of securing Ukrainian sovereignty. For as long as Putin governs Russia, Ukrainian sovereignty will be imperiled. No amount of negotiation will change Putin’s mind: He has shown far too ruthless a will to sacrifice Russian lives for the sake of dominion over Ukraine. Negotiations should have the more modest goal of depriving the war of its intensity, slowing the war, and at the same time staving off worst-case scenarios. Of these, direct confrontation between Russia and the United States would be the absolute worst. To pressure Russia, show resolve, and have patience, without giving up on compromise, would be to overcome the many mistakes of Minsk diplomacy. It would be progress.
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