Donald Trump continues to dream of a peace agreement by Christmas that would allow him to claim another victory among his followers amidst the storm of the Epstein case. To achieve this, he has spurred his negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to secure a commitment from Ukraine in Berlin . Several leaders, such as the Finnish Stubb, the Turkish Erdogan, and even the Hungarian Orban, claim that "peace is closer than ever," but to achieve it, the team of the blonde president faces three major obstacles to overcome and at least one that seems insurmountable. Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, stated that "it is not about any peace agreement with Ukraine, it is only about their surrender." There are issues where there is already a principle of agreement, which may be around 80% of all points, such as holding elections in Ukraine: even Zelenski has already asked his team to study a change in martial law to allow them to take place, but in other aspects, positions remain poles apart.
Handover of the entire Donetsk region to Russia
It is the maximalist and fundamental demand of Vladimir Putin, one that would allow him to achieve something he could call a "victory" and that he has not been able to achieve militarily since he launched the conquest back in 2014 and then in 2022. For Volodimir Zelenski, on the other hand, it is a red line that he does not want to cross and that would have very negative consequences for his political future. A survey published yesterday in Ukraine states that 75% of the population rejects withdrawing from Donbás. Witkoff pressed again in Berlin, and Zelenski refused.
The US, aligned in its effort on the side of Russia, handles an alternative and more presentable idea, such as declaring that entire area as a "demilitarized zone" without Russian or Ukrainian troops. Ukraine could accept that model, but if security were to be in the hands of a foreign military mission.
However, Russian negotiator Kiril Dimitriev stated that Russia would accept it if instead of Russian soldiers, that area was patrolled by Russian police and the Russian National Guard, that is, the "rosgvardia," a military body that reports directly to Vladimir Putin, something that, again, Ukraine would not accept. Brussels and Kiev have presented their alternative text, which would freeze the war on the current front line, an option that Russia will reject.
Entry into NATO and security guarantees
The second major problem in reaching an agreement is the day after the war. Russia desires a precarious peace that distances the West from Ukraine and vetoes any foreign deployment to protect it on its own territory as a security guarantee, which would allow it to resume the invasion in a short period of time. For Ukraine, the best way to avoid this is by joining NATO. Since the alliance was created, the USSR and later Russia have invaded five countries: Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Afghanistan (1979), Georgia (2008), and Ukraine (2014 and 2022), in addition to participating in the wars in Moldova (1992), Syria (2015), or the two Chechen wars (1994 and 1999). In no case were these conflicts directed against an NATO member, and Zelenski knows this.
But that Atlantic membership is also a red line for the Kremlin, so Kiev demands a binding agreement similar to Article 5 (an attack on one member is considered an attack on all), which depends on what the US and Europe are willing to mobilize and whether Moscow accepts it. And so far, it has not accepted any foreign deployment. It is worth noting that Ukraine's independence and sovereignty were supposedly safeguarded by the US and Russia in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, and therefore this peace agreement is nothing more than a territorial concession from one of those guarantors of peace to the other.
The peace agreement that the US aims to approve would give the Trump Administration control over Russian assets, but Europe does not want Washington to benefit alone from that money and clarifies that the destination of those funds will be decided in Brussels. The Russia-US agreement includes new contracts and the exploitation of raw materials (as revealed by The Wall Street Journal) by Trump's companies and associates, but Europe's plans are different: that Ukraine will be rebuilt with that money and will join the European Union in 2027. It seems unlikely that the business interests of some will override the strategy of others. The same goes for war crimes and the International Criminal Court, which declared yesterday through its spokespersons that no peace agreement can erase the current charges against Vladimir Putin and his situation as a wanted individual.