President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is unconventional, but it’s also becoming predictably unpredictable. He sets audacious deadlines, takes previously unthinkable positions and keeps his options open. It seemed like he was ready to abandon Ukraine with a 28-point peace plan highly favorable to Russia, but the Ukrainians understood the gambit and acted accordingly. Ukraine could still come out ahead at the end of this nerve-wracking exercise.
After tough talks in Geneva over the weekend, Washington and Kyiv hammered out an agreement that was more palatable to the young democracy. What seemed like an unbreakable Thanksgiving deadline has been extended. Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, a long way off even without Russia’s objections, were no longer automatically vetoed. And Ukraine is working to fill in the blanks on poorly-worded security guarantees. On Monday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said finding a dignified path forward appears “doable.”
Zelensky has grown more astute at handling Trump since foolishly sparring with him in the Oval Office in February. Knowing the initial deal was dangerous for his country, Zelensky, who has been buffeted by a burgeoning corruption scandal at home, remained calm and offered to negotiate. Trump warned over the weekend that if Zelensky didn’t agree to a ceasefire, he could “fight his little heart out” — without U.S. help. Now that outcome seems less likely. It would be a mistake to force any settlement that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to reinvasion by a rearmed Russia.
On Tuesday, Trump’s team is meeting Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi, with Ukrainians present. The most likely outcome is that Russia balks at any revised deal in which the security guarantees for Ukraine get more teeth. Even though Russian President Vladimir Putin said last Friday that the 28-point plan could “serve as the basis for a final peace settlement,” Russian media has been monolithically signaling that additional terms are likely to be deal-breakers. The message appears to be that if Ukraine does not fully accept Moscow’s terms, Russia’s offensive will continue.
It wouldn’t be the first time Putin has walked away from a deal that might preserve Ukrainian sovereignty, and Trump’s mistake earlier this year was not hitting his Russian counterpart harder and faster. He eventually imposed serious sanctions on Russian oil firms and arms continued to flow into Ukraine. Yet Putin still feels emboldened to continue as he makes small but consistent gains on the ground, no matter the human cost.
Isolationists pretend that those of us who support Ukraine’s righteous fight believe that more weapons and sanctions will enable the country to win back all of its territory. That’s a strawman. Ukraine may never regain its lost territory, and it certainly won’t as long as Putin is alive. But so long as Ukrainians retain the will to fight, providing better arms and imposing punishing sanctions will increase the costs of Putin’s aggression and put them in a better position for future negotiations.
Europeans complaining about being locked out of negotiations have only themselves to blame. The war has been raging for nearly four years, and the continent has done too little to revive its defense industrial base. The least European Union countries could do would be to leverage frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defense.
Negotiations are unsatisfying, as they implicitly reward Putin for his aggression. The reality is that Ukraine is losing ground, and more of the same from Russia would mean much more suffering for Ukrainians this winter. On Monday night, Putin unleashed yet another massive salvo at Kyiv that targeted badly-degraded electricity infrastructure. He wants the civilians of Kyiv to freeze this winter.
Ukraine’s people are incredibly resilient and ready for the looming hardship. The country’s overstretched and outnumbered forces continue to hold the front line, extracting staggering casualties from the enemy for every additional square mile he captures. If Russia wants to fight on, so will Ukraine. But there’s nothing wrong with talking – so long as American negotiators never forget who is really to blame for this awful conflict.
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