The End Game in Ukraine

No matter who won the presidential election, the war in Ukraine was likely to end next year. Both Ukraine and Russia are running out of troops and struggling to call up more young men for the front lines. That reality always meant that 2025 would be a year of negotiations.

Donald Trump’s victory will hasten those peace talks. During the campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine even before his inauguration. Maybe that was a bit of exaggeration. But it’s clear he wants negotiations to begin soon.

That’s bad news for Ukraine. Russian forces are advancing in the east. They’ve also reclaimed some of the Russian territory that Ukraine captured this past summer. Ukraine still has weapons, but its troops are spread thin. Intelligence agencies think it will run out of soldiers soon.

In today’s newsletter, I will look at four questions that will shape the conflict next year — and how Trump’s victory affects them.

1. Can Ukraine keep fighting?

Ukrainian officials insist they are ready to keep fighting. But Republicans are loath to approve more aid for Ukraine, and Kyiv knows that without substantially more aid combat will end soon.

Does Europe have the political will, and the defense industrial might, to replace the United States? At a NATO summit before the election, allies devised a plan to Trump-proof logistical support for Ukraine.

Biden administration officials, however, doubt that Europe can step up. The economic might of the dollar allows Washington to run huge budget deficits to pay for defense. That’s something Europe cannot do. Once American support disappears, it will be hard for Europe to muster the munitions or the funding at a level that can keep Ukraine in the fight.

2. What about the territory Russia seized?

Without more weapons and soldiers, Ukraine may not recover the land it lost to Russia. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, knows this: He acknowledged recently that diplomacy, not the current “hot” war, will be how Ukraine recovers its territory.

In a podcast interview during the presidential campaign, JD Vance proposed freezing the conflict and letting Russia keep what it took by force. Its president, Vladimir Putin, does not seem intent on capturing vastly more territory right now, but he has shown no sign that he is willing to withdraw from the parts of Ukraine he controls. Ukraine’s one bargaining chip is Kursk, the Russian region that Kyiv’s forces partially occupied in August.

The Biden administration is trying to put Ukraine in the best bargaining position. The White House is pushing as many weapons to Ukraine as it can. It gave Ukraine permission to fire American-made long-range missiles into Russia in hopes it could hold Kursk. If it does, maybe Russia will hand back some Ukrainian territory in a trade. But Kyiv is unlikely to recover most of the land it has lost.

3. What guarantees can Ukraine get?

For Ukraine, victory or defeat is not really about a particular parcel of terrain. It’s about the agreements it might secure with Europe and America — for its long-term security and its economic integration with the West. The most ironclad guarantee, NATO membership, is off the table. Trump won’t offer it. A Republican-led Senate with many Trump loyalists won’t approve it.

Vance has proposed neutrality for Ukraine, a key Putin demand. Trump has not detailed his position here. It’s unlikely that he would back Ukraine militarily in the case of a future attack. But Trump may want to be seen as extracting a concession from Putin. He may look beyond Ukraine for such a win — something unrelated to the war. Perhaps he could prod Putin to allow Ukraine some economic integration with Europe, for instance. Putin wouldn’t like that, but it would be a better alternative for him than Ukraine’s entry into NATO.

4. Could Putin take Kyiv?

Here is where the fears of Zelensky and Trump may align. Ukrainians have long said that if they make a deal to end the war now, Putin will simply rest his army, restock and come back for the rest of Ukraine later.

Trump has repeatedly criticized President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump likely doesn’t want a similar legacy: a Russian takeover of Kyiv that lets Democrats say that he lost Ukraine. Republican defenders of Ukraine, a dying breed, argue that Trump never likes to look weak and won’t settle for a deal that gives Putin a free hand. But it’s hard to envision that Putin would make a promise to stay away that Kyiv could count on. (Past promises by Russia to respect Ukrainian sovereignty were worthless.) So protecting Kyiv will be the most difficult, and most important, part of the Trump negotiations.