Gilbert Doctorow
April 19, 2025
The past couple of days have brought wildly contradictory reports from the Trump administration on progress in its initiative to achieve a peace accord ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Either they are progressing well and close to success, as Vice President J.D. Vance has commented or they will be ended in the coming days if the warring parties remain obdurate and their positions are irreconcilable, as Secretary of State Rubio stated yesterday.
Trump himself in his various statements to journalists has moved from the one position to the other and back again, leaving us all guessing as to his real intentions. However, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the administration will announce that it is leaving the talks and moving on to other foreign policy issues on its agenda. I will set those reasons out briefly below.
What I will not address is what the United States’ washing its hands of the war means for all the parties to the war, including the Europeans. Will Washington proceed on its rapprochement with Moscow and relax sanctions or will it impose new, tougher sanctions on Russia? Will it stop all funding and arms deliveries to Ukraine, or will it allow Europeans to buy its arms for delivery to Kiev. The evidence for any of these eventualities is still insufficient to venture a guess.
I have remarked in recent days on the contradictions in positions on the war’s preferred outcome between the ‘hardliners’ Marco Rubio and General Kellogg on the one side and the more Russia-friendly Steve Witkoff on the other side.
From reports on what has been taking place in Paris a day ago, it would appear that the Kellogg line on the end-game in Ukraine has gained the upper hand. This would leave the Russians in possession of the portion of the Eastern Ukrainian oblasts (provinces) that they presently occupy, freezing the line of engagement where it presently is. It would establish a European protectorate over the Westernmost part of Ukraine, presumably with ‘boots on the ground.’ And it would leave intact the Kievan regime, rabidly anti-Russian as it is, holding the rump sovereign state of Ukraine in the middle.
This solution to the war seems to have prevailed over the alternative solution coming from Donald Trump’s personal emissary Steve Witkoff, who appears to have sided with the Russian end-of-war scenario wherein Moscow gets the 4 Eastern oblasts in their entirety, not just at the line of confrontation, where Ukraine declares neutrality, the presence of foreign troops or infrastructure is prohibited, and the size of the Ukrainian army is specified in the peace treaty along with provisions ensuring that the rights of Russian speakers living in the rump Ukraine will be respected.
I see the backing of the Kellogg solution in what was going on in Paris at the invitation of Emmanuel Macron. The Americans led by Rubio and Witkoff sat on one side of the table, while the Ukrainian negotiators sat together with the European representatives on the other side. Ostensibly the Europeans has been invited to the talks because a definitive peace will not be possible unless, at its conclusion, the Europeans support it and agree to lift their own sanctions on Russia.
At the end of the talks, the Europeans said they were satisfied to have taken part, that it was important to reach an alignment of views with the Americans. The Americans, for their part, said the contribution of the Europeans had been ‘constructive.’ They believed they had persuaded the Europeans to accept the realities of the situation, namely the battlefield results, with no further clarifications
Although the participants said that the question of security guaranties for Ukraine had not been discussed, meaning the specifics of European proposals to put ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine, the very fact that the Europeans were satisfied with the tenor of the discussion is a victory for the Kellogg position versus the Putin-friendly Witkoff position.
We did not hear from the Ukrainian negotiators, but they could not have been happy with the provisions of the Kellogg solution regarding the disposition of the Ukrainian territory now under Russian occupation. Kiev rejects categorically territorial concessions to Russia.
For these reasons, I find that any 50-50 compromise between what the Europeans and Kiev want versus what Moscow wants is utterly unworkable. The desires of the warring parties are mutually exclusive and neither will accept the Trump administration’s proposed compromise. The only question is who, Kiev or Moscow, will be the first to reject the compromise publicly, risking Trump’s fury.
Given these conditions, I expect Trump to walk away from the Ukraine war within a week’s time. When you have a clear winner in a war, it is unrealistic and futile to demand that the winner give up the objectives that caused him to launch the war: namely to keep NATO Member States out of Ukraine and to ensure that the human rights of Russian speakers living in Ukraine are respected.. It is still more absured to expect the winner to capitulate to the loser, as Kiev and the EU are demanding and give up all territorial gains on the field of battle.
gilbertdoctorow.com
April 19, 2025
The past couple of days have brought wildly contradictory reports from the Trump administration on progress in its initiative to achieve a peace accord ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Either they are progressing well and close to success, as Vice President J.D. Vance has commented or they will be ended in the coming days if the warring parties remain obdurate and their positions are irreconcilable, as Secretary of State Rubio stated yesterday.
Trump himself in his various statements to journalists has moved from the one position to the other and back again, leaving us all guessing as to his real intentions. However, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the administration will announce that it is leaving the talks and moving on to other foreign policy issues on its agenda. I will set those reasons out briefly below.
What I will not address is what the United States’ washing its hands of the war means for all the parties to the war, including the Europeans. Will Washington proceed on its rapprochement with Moscow and relax sanctions or will it impose new, tougher sanctions on Russia? Will it stop all funding and arms deliveries to Ukraine, or will it allow Europeans to buy its arms for delivery to Kiev. The evidence for any of these eventualities is still insufficient to venture a guess.
I have remarked in recent days on the contradictions in positions on the war’s preferred outcome between the ‘hardliners’ Marco Rubio and General Kellogg on the one side and the more Russia-friendly Steve Witkoff on the other side.
From reports on what has been taking place in Paris a day ago, it would appear that the Kellogg line on the end-game in Ukraine has gained the upper hand. This would leave the Russians in possession of the portion of the Eastern Ukrainian oblasts (provinces) that they presently occupy, freezing the line of engagement where it presently is. It would establish a European protectorate over the Westernmost part of Ukraine, presumably with ‘boots on the ground.’ And it would leave intact the Kievan regime, rabidly anti-Russian as it is, holding the rump sovereign state of Ukraine in the middle.
This solution to the war seems to have prevailed over the alternative solution coming from Donald Trump’s personal emissary Steve Witkoff, who appears to have sided with the Russian end-of-war scenario wherein Moscow gets the 4 Eastern oblasts in their entirety, not just at the line of confrontation, where Ukraine declares neutrality, the presence of foreign troops or infrastructure is prohibited, and the size of the Ukrainian army is specified in the peace treaty along with provisions ensuring that the rights of Russian speakers living in the rump Ukraine will be respected.
I see the backing of the Kellogg solution in what was going on in Paris at the invitation of Emmanuel Macron. The Americans led by Rubio and Witkoff sat on one side of the table, while the Ukrainian negotiators sat together with the European representatives on the other side. Ostensibly the Europeans has been invited to the talks because a definitive peace will not be possible unless, at its conclusion, the Europeans support it and agree to lift their own sanctions on Russia.
At the end of the talks, the Europeans said they were satisfied to have taken part, that it was important to reach an alignment of views with the Americans. The Americans, for their part, said the contribution of the Europeans had been ‘constructive.’ They believed they had persuaded the Europeans to accept the realities of the situation, namely the battlefield results, with no further clarifications
Although the participants said that the question of security guaranties for Ukraine had not been discussed, meaning the specifics of European proposals to put ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine, the very fact that the Europeans were satisfied with the tenor of the discussion is a victory for the Kellogg position versus the Putin-friendly Witkoff position.
We did not hear from the Ukrainian negotiators, but they could not have been happy with the provisions of the Kellogg solution regarding the disposition of the Ukrainian territory now under Russian occupation. Kiev rejects categorically territorial concessions to Russia.
For these reasons, I find that any 50-50 compromise between what the Europeans and Kiev want versus what Moscow wants is utterly unworkable. The desires of the warring parties are mutually exclusive and neither will accept the Trump administration’s proposed compromise. The only question is who, Kiev or Moscow, will be the first to reject the compromise publicly, risking Trump’s fury.
Given these conditions, I expect Trump to walk away from the Ukraine war within a week’s time. When you have a clear winner in a war, it is unrealistic and futile to demand that the winner give up the objectives that caused him to launch the war: namely to keep NATO Member States out of Ukraine and to ensure that the human rights of Russian speakers living in Ukraine are respected.. It is still more absured to expect the winner to capitulate to the loser, as Kiev and the EU are demanding and give up all territorial gains on the field of battle.
The best thing that Trump can do now is to walk away from the Russia-Ukraine war
The past couple of days have brought wildly contradictory reports from the Trump administration on progress in its initiative to achieve a peace accord ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Either they ar…
gilbertdoctorow.com
