Trump-Putin call is a positive step towards peace

On the ground, the fighting continues, with new Russian attacks in southern Ukraine and a Ukrainian incursion into the Russian province of Belgorod. Ukraine claims that Russia attacked the electricity grid in the town of Slovyansk after the Trump-Putin agreement, but this has not been confirmed.

If Moscow sticks to it, the Russian agreement to a pause in attacks on infrastructure would be a major concession; for while Ukraine will also cease its attacks on Russian infrastructure, Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s electricity system have been vastly more damaging and valuable to the Russian war effort. Hence Russia’s initial refusal to agree to such a moratorium when Ukraine and France first proposed this last month. The pause in these attacks will also limit Ukrainian civilian casualties, many of which have been collateral from Russian strikes against infrastructure.

Trump did not agree to Russia’s prior demand that during a ceasefire the US stop arms supplies to Ukraine. For any US and European critics of Trump who are still capable of thinking objectively about the peace process, this should lead them to question the hysterical condemnations of the US President as a “traitor” and “Putin ally”.

On the other hand, Russia continues to reject the US-Ukraine call for a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire because the war on the ground continues to go its way. We do not yet know the final figure for Ukrainian losses during their latest defeat in Kursk, but it appears to be substantial. Having driven the Ukrainian army from the sliver of Russian territory it still held, Moscow will be free to throw all its reserves into its offensive in the Donbas.

How far and fast this will proceed is impossible to say. US military aid to Ukraine has resumed, and European aid continues. However, the advantage unquestionably lies with Russia. At best, Kyiv can hope to continue the pattern of the past year, whereby the Ukrainian army falls back very slowly from position to position, inflicting heavy casualties in the process. The chance of a much greater Ukrainian defeat cannot however be excluded.

That is why the present EU and British approach to the peace process is so very questionable from Ukraine’s point of view. For the EU may eventually have to play a critical role in persuading the Ukrainian government to accept what even in the very best circumstances will be a painful peace settlement. Instead, at present all the talk continues to be of a “coalition of the willing” providing a powerful peacekeeping force as an essential part of a peace settlement.

This is simply not going to happen. Several EU governments openly oppose it. The Russian government has repeatedly rejected it and insisted that any peacekeepers be from neutral countries. And even the British government, which together with the French is leading the push for such a force, has stated that it would only be possible with a US “backstop”, or guarantee of armed support. Trump has ruled this out.

What this British and European project can do, however, is encourage the Ukrainians to hold out for it as part of a settlement, if not as an actual goal then as a bargaining counter to try to extract concessions from Moscow in other areas. This, though, would depend on the Russians being willing to bargain — and if they don’t think it is a serious threat, why would they?

Meanwhile on the battlefield, time is not on Ukraine’s side. It is therefore hard to see why any of its serious European allies (as opposed to a politically bankrupt establishment posturing for the dregs of domestic advantage) would think that this empty proposal for a European force is to Ukraine’s advantage.

Russia continues to insist that for the duration of a complete ceasefire, Western military aid to Ukraine should be paused — by way of compensation for the military advantage that Russia would give up. The Trump administration might agree to this, but the Europeans certainly will not. Moscow also wants as many aspects of a peace settlement to be nailed down as firmly as possible before agreeing to a ceasefire.

Trump and Putin spoke of the need for “improved US-Russia relations” — a radical difference from current European rhetoric about Russia and a crucial goal for Moscow. The problem for Russia, however, as a Russian analyst told me, is that “any agreement with the US has a four-year shelf-life”; in other words, after the next elections a new US administration may tear it up. That is another reason why the Russians are trying to make any agreement as formal, detailed and internationally legitimate as possible.

Anatol Lieven is a former war correspondent and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC.