There are two ways to interpret the Trump administration’s latest peace initiative in Ukraine. It may merely be, as some claim, the latest expression of its greed and stupidity, its urge to betray Ukraine, and its authoritarian lust for intimacy with the autocrat of Russia. Or it might be something altogether more complicated.
Unquestionably, this is a corrupt administration, in which the offspring of the principals carve out multibillion-dollar deals in real estate and cryptocurrency while the president slathers gold leaf on anything made of stone or wood and indulges in various side hustles of his own. Unquestionably, too, Donald Trump dislikes Volodymyr Zelensky, retains a sneaking respect for Vladimir Putin as a fellow tough guy, and thinks Russia is gradually grinding the life out of Ukraine. But that is far from the full story.
For those who care about Ukraine, it is the main focus of their thoughts. Not so for Trump, who presides over a coalition showing increasing cracks as various factions—tech bros, small-government fanatics, Jew-haters, anti-vaccine quacks, Christian nationalists, xenophobes, isolationists, anti-immigration monomaniacs, covert normie Republicans, and garden-variety populists—have begun to pick fights with one another and even, cautiously, with the White House. The courts have thwarted Trump’s pursuit of vengeance against his enemies, and worse may lie ahead if the Supreme Court strikes down his tariff policies.
[Anne Applebaum: Why does Steve Witkoff keep taking Russia’s side?]
Prices have been rising, and Trump’s approval rating has been declining—and in an admittedly limited set of off-year elections, his party was crushed. He is contemplating the approach of 2026, which will bring his 80th birthday and the midterm elections, and he may see his party surrender control of the House. Beyond that, the creeping enfeeblement of a lame-duck administration awaits. Meanwhile, he may be coming to the realization that he has boxed himself into either a humiliating climbdown from confrontation with Venezuela or a much more problematic war of which the American people, and even a docile Congress, would disapprove.
Is it any wonder that a Russia-Ukraine deal is attractive to a man who is musing uneasily about his own mortality and who has, like most unpopular presidents, taken refuge in travel abroad and foreign triumphs? Ending the Gaza war was a success, but this would be considerably bigger.
Moreover, the outlines of a reasonable cessation of hostilities are there. From Ukraine’s perspective, it will be a much worse deal than was possible in the first two years of the war. The timidity of the Biden administration in arming Ukraine and the incapacity of a self-disarmed Europe have cost Ukraine its best opportunity to reclaim by force most of its invaded territory. The unwillingness of the United States and Europe alike to wage serious economic war, by confiscating Russian sovereign assets and clamping down on Russia’s oil exports (which, to its credit, the Trump administration has done more on than its predecessor) has so far prevented Russia from feeling truly dire economic consequences.
A plausible cease-fire would freeze territorial control more or less along current lines, with provisions for Ukraine’s economic reconstruction, the repatriation of its citizens from occupied lands, entry into the European Union, and long-term military support from the West, including at least a rotational NATO military presence. Above all, it would need to include recognition by all parties of Ukraine’s sovereignty and right to choose its own destiny.
The time may well be ripe for such a deal. Russia, particularly in its dealings with the Trump administration, has been brilliant in concealing its own weaknesses, which include an oil industry squeezed by sanctions and Ukrainian missile and drone strikes, the consequences of losing millions of men to battlefield death and injury or to emigration, the distortion of an economy crippled by war production, and the fallout of mortgaging its future to a predatory China. But those weaknesses exist.
The problem is the American bunglers who are trying to make the deal. The worst of the lot is the real-estate guy Steve Witkoff, who has sweetly expressed his confidence in Putin’s candor; who pals around with Kirill Dmitriev, a Moscow hood in financier’s fancy clothing; and whose latest escapade includes giving candid advice to his Russian interlocutors on how to manipulate his own president. Amateur diplomats have been known to succeed, but this one is a disaster: He is ill-informed, credulous, and utterly unfamiliar with the history and character of those he deals with.
But the pathologies of the administration go far deeper. There is no foreign-policy process to speak of: no dull hammering-out of positions and action plans in stuffy conference rooms, no agreed-upon statements of conclusions, no use of trusted diplomats to bring on board allies and relevant neutrals. A sensible process, for example, would have had a single negotiator shuttling back and forth between Moscow and Kyiv and a common American position agreed upon before the latest initiative. That did not happen.
Rather, shortly after the initial U.S. 28-point plan was leaked, Senators Angus King and Mike Rounds reported to the press that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told them that it represented the Russian, not the American, position. Rubio later denied that. Trump erupted on Truth Social, “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA. THE USA CONTINUES TO SELL MASSIVE $AMOUNTS OF WEAPONS TO NATO, FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UKRAINE,” a combination of falsehoods and half- or quarter-truths. European states, which had not been consulted, balked and proposed their own 24-point peace plan. The secretary of state flew to Kyiv. Witkoff flew to Abu Dhabi. The secretary of the Army (a new participant in this game) flew to Kyiv. An ultimatum to Ukraine with a hard deadline of a deal by Thanksgiving evaporated. It was political comic opera.
The Trump administration has a fatal proclivity for forgetting that other actors in the world have agency—in this case, the much-disparaged Europeans, whose own security is at stake and who (admittedly after Trump’s prodding) are doing much more for their own and Ukraine’s defense than is often realized. And because the stakes for Ukraine are literally survival, Ukrainians have not folded in the past and will not here.
[Thomas Wright: A self-defeating reversal on Ukraine]
Putin may simply refuse the basic deal on offer. But even if he accepts it, more perils await. Promises of nonaggression from Putin’s Russia, a regime built on revanchism and lies, are meaningless. So, too, in this administration, are U.S. guarantees. Russia’s reentry into international institutions and the lifting of sanctions will strengthen it, and the lure of Trumpian self-enrichment and Vancian isolationism will diminish such American commitment to Ukraine as currently exists. Should Russia violate commitments such as to freedom of navigation of the Dnipro River from Ukraine to the Black Sea, one may reasonably doubt whether a Trump administration would bring down the hammer.
Still, if even a Ukraine severed from the Donbas and Crimea—in theory, only temporarily; in reality, probably permanently—can maintain its sovereignty, consolidate its democratic institutions, be assured of entry into the EU, acquire the arms it needs to defend itself bolstered by the intermittent presence of Western armies and air forces, it has a chance. It deserved so much better. But its own efforts, despite the bungles and cowardice of its friends, have at least bought it a chance for the freedom it is due. As for the Trump administration, it may crow or throw tantrums or stalk off in a huff. But it is also just barely conceivable that it may bring an end—in all likelihood, alas, a temporary one—to Europe’s most hideous and unjust war since 1945.
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