Washington and Kyiv still appear committed to negotiating a peace deal, despite the whirlwind of back and forth between the US and Ukrainian presidents this week.
But stark differences between what the US is demanding and what Ukraine is willing to offer, further complicated by Donald Trump’s baffling alignment with Russia, are signalling that a deal would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
“Nobody was expecting this,” global affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria said about the US “siding with the aggressive dictator”.
“This is a breathtaking reversal in US foreign policy,” he added.
Diplomatic discussions continue on both sides of the Atlantic, with White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz urging Volodymyr Zelensky to “tone down” the rhetoric and “sign that deal”.
That “deal” would require Ukraine to give 50 per cent of its revenue from rare earth minerals and other natural resources to the US, according to Zelensky.
And even if all sides – the US, Ukraine and Russia – reach a deal in the near future, concerns remain that underlying tensions could persist, potentially escalating into a broader conflict on the continent.
While the outcome of the ongoing negotiations remains uncertain, several scenarios could set the stage for broader regional instability.
Ukraine has insisted that a temporary ceasefire would give Russia the advantage of time to regroup and prepare for a stronger offensive.
While Vladimir Putin may be open to negotiations, he has no real intention of committing to peace, some analysts have argued.
“I tend to think that the most likely scenario is that both Russia and the US will push for a ceasefire, simply because the underlying problems here are so complex that time would need to be available to negotiate those issues,” said John Lough, a former Nato representative in Moscow and Russia and Eurasia Programme fellow at Chatham House.
Furthermore, a ceasefire would provide “a perfect pretext” for Ukraine to lift its martial law – declared in response to Russia’s invasion – and hold elections, he said.
Both Trump and Putin want to see Zelensky removed as commander-in-chief and replaced with a more favourable candidate.
“If that happens, I think that’s a very dangerous scenario for Ukraine, because it would open up probably all sorts of divisions in society,” said Lough.
At the same time, the Russians “have a very poor record of observing ceasefires,” he noted.
“I think that’s a very dangerous scenario for Ukraine, but it’s easy to see how it might come about.”
Trump has suggested withdrawing US forces from key positions in eastern Europe in a move that would embolden Russia further and weaken the deterrence power of the Western alliance.
US troops operating as part of Nato’s units along the alliance’s eastern flank have a crucial role in enforcing conflict deterrence along Russia’s border.
If the US presence on the Nato frontline were to be reduced, Lough said, “there’s no doubt that Russia would interpret that as a signal of the continuing US withdrawal from Europe” and exploit that as an opportunity “to be more aggressive without serious consequences”.
“It would be a huge symbolic loss for Nato,” said Robert Hamilton, the head of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program.
“It’s long been a Russian goal to split the US from the Nato alliance and Trump appears to be doing that for them,” he added.
Moscow knows that if it invades a Nato country and kills Americans, “they’re at war with the United States”. But if US troops are pulled from Baltic nations – that deterrent is removed.
One of the key topics UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to discuss when they meet with Trump next week is a multinational peacekeeping force that would be used as a security guarantee against Russia in case of a halt in hostilities.
Deploying a considerable security force would be very difficult without US support, analysts say.
As Russia has been gaining experience, developing military technology, forging ties with totalitarian regimes, and revamping its economy to sustain its mammoth war effort, there are concerns that European countries would struggle to deter possible further aggression.
“If we let the brutal aggression flourish, then we will see this in other parts of the world,” said Kaja Kallas, who served as prime minister of Estonia until July 2024.
“All the aggressors or would-be aggressors in the world are clearly taking notes on how we react to Russia’s aggression.”
Trump’s push to allow Russia back into the group of the world’s largest liberal democratic economies has left many puzzled, as the proposal echoes comments coming straight from the Kremlin.
“It shows how far Putin was able to get into Trump’s head,” said global affairs analyst Kim Dozier. It also shows that the same administration officials who were initially describing the war as “the war of aggression” haven’t been able to change the US President’s mind.
The Trump administration has been referring to the war in Ukraine as a “conflict” in an apparent effort to soften the language and please Moscow.
“That is disturbing,” said Lough. “You can see this sort of neutralization of language. And that’s definitely an effort to try to draw closer to the Russian position.”
The US side has been blocking the phrase “Russian aggression” from the official statement of the G7 marking the 4-year anniversary of the war, Reuters reported this week. The participation of the Ukrainian president in a virtual G7 summit on Monday has also been unconfirmed.
Russia was expelled from the group, formally known as the G8, after it invaded eastern Ukraine and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and the EU have limited Russia’s ability to fund its war on Ukraine, but nonetheless Moscow has been able to sustain its military efforts.
Trump opening a debate about readmitting Russia back into the G7, and possibly lifting some sanctions, could further divide allies and would be music to Putin’s ears.
No matter the outcome of the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Russia won’t stop its attacks on its archenemy, the Western democratic order, analysts point out.
Moscow will continue to think it’s at war with the West over the presumed assumption it is preventing it from achieving its greatness, according to military analyst Cedric Leighton.
Russia will continue to wage war through sabotage attacks, assassination attempts and disinformation despite a possible peace, Leighton said.
Heightened tensions could more easily boil over into a larger military conflict, as Russia continues to strive for power and influence, and has recently welcomed pro-Moscow governments in former soviet republics Moldova and Georgia.
And now it seems Russia’s biggest enemy has become its closest friend.
Russia has been waging war for decades, “and it’s not going to stop,” Hamilton said.
“I think we are witnessing history right now in a very tragic way,” said Zakaria.
The US President seems determined to secure a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict at any cost – aiming to fulfill a campaign promise and project strength rather than out of a genuine commitment to democratic principles or the protection of a smaller democratic nation.
But his conditions – forcing Ukraine to sign the rare minerals contract – as well as Moscow’s extreme demands to be granted control of the entire territory of the four eastern Ukrainian provinces that Russia now partially occupies, in addition to Ukraine not being admitted to Nato, make reaching a long-lasting deal extremely difficult.
Analysts believe it may even be unlikely.
No Ukrainian president, including Zelensky, could have agreed to a deal that involved surrendering a significant portion of the country’s natural resources, which are essential to its economic future.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz has said it was time for Ukraine to stop “bad-mouthing” Trump because of everything the US president has done for the country. “It’s unacceptable. They need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal.”
But according to US intelligence sources, there are indications that Putin remains unwavering in his ambition to control Ukraine. As CNN reports, officials describe him as “obsessed” with Ukraine, suggesting that even if he agrees to negotiations, his true objectives remain unchanged.
Analysts believe that Russia may be able to sustain its military effort for over a year, despite the sanctions European countries and the US have imposed.
If the US stops providing support for Kyiv, Ukraine would likely be able to continue fighting for a few more months. What would happen after that is unclear.
“A deal may be reached, but it may not be something that the Ukrainians and their European partners wish to support, in which case Ukraine could reject that deal. And then the war would simply continue,” said Lough.
“It’d be a question of the extent to which the close European partners would be able and willing to support it further. So that would be an ugly scenario. But it’s a perfectly possible one.”
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