After their meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traded happy talk about the state of peace negotiations in Ukraine. “We have made a lot of progress on ending that war,” Trump said. “We had a really great discussion on all the topics,” Zelensky said, adding that there was “90 percent” agreement on a peace plan.
Do not be fooled. Trump came into office promising to end the war in 24 hours. Nearly a year later, that ambitious objective is no closer to being achieved. How do I know? Because the fighting continues unabated.
On Saturday, the day before Zelensky and Trump met, Russia attacked Ukraine with nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles. Russian drone-and-missile assaults, focused on civilian rather than miliary targets, are considerably larger than they were a year ago. Ukrainian energy infrastructure has been particularly hard hit, leaving many Ukrainians shivering in the dark and cold as temperatures plunge.
If Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wanted the war to end, he could stop the attacks at any moment. He hasn’t done so, because he seems intent on a victory that would consign Ukraine to the status of a Kremlin colony. On Dec. 17, Putin gave a speech in which he vowed that “if the opposing side and their foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means.”
Putin is the missing man in the “peace negotiations.” Though Putin has had repeated conversations with Trump, most recently in a Sunday phone call, he refuses to meet with, or talk to, Zelensky. Putin has made clear that he views Zelensky as the illegitimate ruler of a nonexistent state — so what is there to talk about?
Nor has Putin shown any sign, in his talks with Trump or with his credulous peace envoy, Steve Witkoff, of making any real compromises. Everything that Putin says and does indicates that he remains committed to his maximalist demands. This includes Ukraine’s ceding unconquered territory in Donetsk, taking NATO membership off the table, limiting the size of its armed forces, precluding any Western peacekeeping forces on its soil and installing a pro-Russian puppet regime in Kyiv.
Many of these Russian demands were included in a 28-point peace plan that the White House unveiled in November. This was accompanied by a Trump ultimatum that, if Zelensky did not agree by Thanksgiving, the United States would cut off all remaining assistance to his country. Ukraine and its European allies were understandably taken aback by the U.S. plan, which would have handed the Kremlin a victory it has not won on the battlefield. What has been going on since Thanksgiving has been a frenetic attempt by Ukraine and its supporters to get the White House to soften its demands.
Zelensky seems to have had some success in achieving that objective, with crucial help from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is less susceptible to Putin’s disinformation than either Trump or Witkoff. (In a display of staggering naiveté, Trump said on Sunday, “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed.”)
In lieu of the pro-Kremlin, 28-point “peace plan,” the Ukrainian government has now crafted, in cooperation with U.S. representatives, a 20-point plan that Ukrainians would be more likely to live with. It does not include any promise to hand over to Russia the unconquered parts of Donetsk. But it does indicate a willingness to create some kind of demilitarized zone with both Russian and Ukrainian forces pulling back from the front lines.
Other concessions from Zelensky include an offer to hold a presidential election shortly after the signing of the agreement and to accept limitations on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces (albeit at a much higher level than Putin would like). In return, Zelensky wants, in lieu of NATO membership, “Article 5-like” U.S. security guarantees that would deter future Russian aggression.
When Trump and Zelensky talk about progress now, they are referring to the 20-point plan. But here’s the thing: There is no indication that Putin would agree to any of this. In fact, it wasn’t even clear that Putin would have agreed to the earlier 28-point plan, because it didn’t include his entire wish list. It did not, for example, demand that Ukraine’s allies cut off all security assistance.
The Kremlin is almost certain to reject any U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine. Ukraine, in turn, is unlikely to ever cede the unconquered portions of Donetsk to Russian occupation, because to do so would be to give Putin an advantageous position from which to launch a future invasion.
Thus, there have been many gestures toward peace over the past year, but no real progress. And how can there be when the main negotiations are going on between Kyiv and Washington — not between Kyiv and Moscow? Putin and Zelensky are simply trying to shift blame for the failure of peace negotiations: Each wants Trump to blame the other.
From that narrow perspective, Sunday’s Mar-a-Lago summit can be judged a success, because Trump was polite to Zelensky and did not blame him, as he has in the past, for the lack of progress. Limited U.S. assistance to Ukraine — which consists of providing intelligence and selling weapons for the Europeans to pass along to Kyiv — will continue for the time being. And so will the U.S. sanctions on Russia, which are imposing substantial costs on its economy.
But don’t mistake progress in stopping a U.S. sellout of Ukraine with progress in ending the war. The conflict will end only when Putin is convinced that he can’t achieve his military objectives. Until that point is reached, peace negotiations aren’t going anywhere.
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