Michael McFaul
The Trump administration’s week of Russian-Ukrainian diplomacy yielded mixed results. At his Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump treated an imperial dictator and indicted war criminal like a revered dignitary. His main goal for the summit—a cease-fire—was rejected outright by Putin, and his most modest objective for the meeting—a commitment by Putin to meet directly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with Trump in attendance—has thus far been rebuffed by Moscow, as well. A subsequent summit in Washington, attended by Zelensky and other European leaders, was more productive, as the group discussed potential U.S. and European security guarantees for Kyiv. Before that meeting, the American commitment to security guarantees was ambiguous.
Trump’s intuition that a deal will require land swaps and security guarantees is correct; Putin will agree to end the war only if he feels that he has won Ukrainian territory, and Zelensky will never agree to cede territory without the promise of protection from a future Russian invasion. But Trump’s improvisational attempt to negotiate over both subjects at the same time, with the same groups of leaders, is wrong-headed. Rather than discussing these two issues with everyone all at once, Trump needs to organize two sets of separate negotiations. The order in which these negotiations occur will be key to their success. Trump and his team must first reach an agreement on security guarantees among Ukraine, other European countries, and the United States. Only then should Washington encourage a conversation between Zelensky and Putin about de facto territorial concessions that could bring an end to the war.
Such a diplomatic two-step will not be easy. Indeed, the United States and Europe may have to present a security guarantee convincing enough to get Ukraine to agree to an unpopular compromise: the continuation of Russian occupation of Ukrainian land. But if Trump and European leaders can hold successful negotiations with Zelensky before the Ukrainian president sits down with Putin, they have a chance to craft a lasting peace.
TAKING THE LEAP
An agreement to bring an end to the war hinges on the ability of Putin and Zelensky alone to reach an agreement on borders and land swaps. Neither European leaders nor Trump should be involved in these discussions; neither has the authority to give away Ukrainian land.
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