Like an object floating up, but still underwater, the vague structure of a peace plan for Ukraine is taking shape. Despite relative silence in policy announcements about this war by a Trump administration that is very noisy, the next two weeks will be able to reveal significant steps. It is not clear to gain some force with Kremlin.
Last week, US President Donald Trump officially appointed renovated general Keith Kellogg, 80, as his sent to Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg’s first act was to announce that he would discuss his vision for peace in Ukraine with the Allies at the Munich Security Conference from February 14 to 16. Four days later, Kellogg is expected to visit Kiev, in his first and long -awaited trip to the country, according to the Ukrainian media.
All Kellogg statements are analyzed by an anxious Kiev. The president responded to suggestions that at the Munich conference would be publicly revealed the outline of a peace plan, telling Newsmax: “The person who will present the peace plan is the president of the United States, not Keith Kellogg.” Trump will have the potential great revelation, it seems, after Kellogg consults the allies in Germany.
Trump tried to start the process, it seems in recent days, telling The New York Post on Saturday that he had spoken to his Russian homologist Vladimir Putin about the end of the war, but without providing details. Kremlin refused to confirm the call, but spokesman Dmitri Peskov told CNN, “There may be something I don’t know.”
It would be to expect complex diplomatic symphony to try to end Europe’s biggest war since the 1940s. Instead, at least in public, interveners struggle to maintain the same melody in a version of Karaoke online.
Trump has been surprisingly manifested about the need to end conflict, but with few public ideas. This week, he launched the idea of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, Trump’s date has not yet been set and comments seemed an improvised answer to a question about whether his ambitious vice president JD Vance would meet Zelensky in Munich. In fact, we don’t know how much it is happening privately. Kremlin hinted that discussions are “intensifying” and US National Security Counselor Mike Waltz spoke of private efforts.
One of the first acts of Reformed General Keith Kellogg, sent from the US to Ukraine, was to announce that he would discuss the vision of peace with the Allies at the Munich Security Conference. SIAVOSH HOSOSINI/Soup images/shutterstock
Kellogg’s Peace Plan has been released since April, which is a stable frame of reference that allows comparing the details of an agreement. Briefly, the project provided for Ukraine to receive more military aid, conditioned to negotiations, and a ceasefire, followed by a possible presence of European peace maintenance forces on the front line.
Kellogg also suggested that a first ceasefire could be the time for elections in Ukraine if the truce realize. This week, the Ukrainian media published a provisional calendar for any agreement, suggesting a ceasefire around Easter, in late April, a peacekeeping conference and a wider deal in May, but only presidential elections for the country in August. The presidency also rejected the idea outright, considering it false. But the escapes of information, forged or not, will continue to emerge as all parties try to throw or reject ideas.
It’s hard not to interpret the calling of elections as a way for Zelensky to slowly move away and perhaps offering an incentive to bring Kremlin to the negotiating table. The animosity of the Ukrainian leader is unsurpassed in relation to Putin, whose invasion has devastated vast areas of Ukraine and allegedly committed war crimes against his citizens. Zelensky and the US president also had a difficult relationship during his first term because of Trump’s requirement to investigate the Biden family.
Zelensky is now entering a phase when the two most powerful voices in any peace agreement do not share the widespread adulation that he has enjoyed in the West for three years.
Zelensky and the US president have a difficult relationship since the first term of the American, due to Trump’s requirement to investigate the Biden family. EFREM LUKATSKY/AP
The elections have caused uncontrolled Kiev speculation about Zelensky’s future. Zelensky gave long interviews last week, sometimes looking angry and anxious that Ukraine could not be at the center of the conversations. In his daily speech on Thursday, Zelensky claimed to have “the certainty” that “there is no official peace plan yet.” He added: “What is in certain publications, once again, I’m sure, maybe it’s wrong, but I’m sure it’s not an official Plan of President Trump.” His senior team spoke to Kellogg and Waltz in recent days, they said. But Zelensky is no longer an insurmountable figure.
Leading some polls, in any future Ukrainian presidential election, is Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the military chief that Zelensky fired last year. Zaluzhnyi is currently the Ukrainian ambassador in the UK, having recently been photographed in Kiev with British Foreign Minister David Lammy.
The elections in Ukraine are currently postponed as part of the martial law, with the valid argument that the country – under constant bombardment, with millions of physically at war or refugees abroad, and fighting a neighboring neighbor who vigorously intrudes to us Their voting for two decades – cannot have free and fair elections as long as there is no peace. But an initial ceasefire can provide this calm and even an opportunity for Zelensky to move away and give the opportunity to a new face, without the uncomfortable history that the current Ukraine leader has the first term of Trump, to negotiate more agreement broad. Valerii Zaluzhnyi could command the loyalty of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a less than perfect agreement with Moscow.
But a lot can also run very badly. Electoral chaos can give rise to an imperfect or contested result. A greater pro-Russian feeling can reach the voting report through computer science or illicit acts. The threat of corruption investigations is leaving many responsible concerned about their own destination. It is the kind of confusion that is expected in war time, which is why elections can be an extra complexity.
This conflict was defined as an unexpected conflict. Zelensky has been compared to a modern Winston Churchill, providing the West the backbone that I didn’t know. It would be consistent with the wild war vacillations that he would move away at the time of greater vulnerability of Ukraine.
Another obstacle to peace is to know if Kremlin wants it now, or at all. Currently, Kremlin is winning on the battlefield – not at a rapid pace, but is gaining ground. Russian forces seem to have taken the city of Toretsk and will soon capture Pokrovsk in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk. This would also leave them with relatively open land to the key cities of Dnipro and Zaporizehzia. It is not clear why Russia would try to freeze the progress of its front line when Ukraine, in the words of a front line soldier to CNN, “has not much to say about it.”
This week, fragments of the private plan – or spontaneously imagined – for peace will emerge in the public domain. Each nuance affects the lives of millions of Ukrainians and dictates security in Europe for decades. Even Taiwan is safer if Russia is not encouraged. As the silhouette of a plane approaches the surface, they can only expect it to be as serious as the moment.
