Donald Trump is preparing to welcome his Ukrainian counterpart to the White House after last week showed that not even among Americans there is a “consensual position” on how to end the war in Ukraine
Among all the doubts that still persist regarding a possible peace agreement, especially in light of Donald Trump’s new proposal to end the war in Ukraine, one question stands out: “What is the alternative?”
The question was posed by Greg Swenson, a Republican Party operative, days after the US administration presented a negotiating proposal which, as revealed by sources within the party itself, was based on one – and which Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, managed to “moderate” at the last minute in a meeting with European officials in Geneva.
“The first proposal contained a series of assumptions that would be very difficult to pass if it were not, exclusively, in a dialogue between part of the North American administration and the Russian Federation”, points out Ana Santos Pinto, researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. “What was necessary was what was done, changing parts of the document – and the first test will be, effectively, understanding what is accepted by President Trump and the part of the administration that is with him and that was not in Geneva.”
Late last week, Trump had given Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky just days to relent and accept this initial 28-point plan – widely criticized for appearing like a list of unilateral concessions to Putin. But come the weekend, Rubio managed to reduce that list to 20 points and postpone the “final deadline” – which, if not met, Trump had warned, would leave the Ukrainian leader alone to “fight until the last consequences”.
On his trip to Switzerland, the head of US diplomacy managed to get some of the most sensitive topics, such as the limit imposed on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and the ban on stationing NATO troops in the invaded country, to be set aside and referred to future negotiations, as well as where the new border between Ukraine and Russia will be drawn.
As Ana Santos Pinto highlights, “just the element of there being a document makes it different from the previous stages, because now there is a negotiation basis”. The question is to understand, says the former Secretary of State for Defense, how Trump, his administration and the Republican Party will position themselves in the upcoming negotiations, taking into account that this reversal in a matter of days – which saw us go from a 28-point pro-Russian agreement to a marinated 20-point agreement – showed a “non-consensual positioning” between two barricades.
“I think that this dimension of acceptance on the part of the USA is not irrelevant. In other words, when we read the positioning – whether of the Republicans or the administration – we realize that, on the one hand, there is openness to a greater positioning of Russia – on the part of the vice-president, JD Vance; the Secretary of the Army, ; and Steve Witkoff. On the other side there is no such openness – I’m talking on the side of the party and that of members of the administration itself, including Marco Rubio”, indicates Ana Santos Pinto. “This is no longer so much about Russia’s reaction but about the reaction of the North American administration, in relation to this incompatibility of positions. And the big question is how these two aspects will position themselves before President Trump, who at the end of the line is always the one who validates the acceptance or not of the negotiation assumptions.”
Avoid capitulation
On Monday, when reporting on Rubio’s efforts to obtain changes to the initial document, the New York Times highlighted that “the price of the changes is evident”, given that, “according to some Trump administration officials, Putin will probably reject the new proposal out of hand, which would lead to long and drawn-out negotiations – exactly what Trump has been trying to avoid”.
The Kremlin’s official position proved this this Tuesday morning. “Our assessments remain valid, in the sense that the main provisions of the plan [original] of Trump are based on understandings reached in Anchorage [no Alasca]at the Russian-American summit in August – and these principles are, in general, reflected in the plan, which we welcome with satisfaction”, said the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Lavrov assured that Moscow is not putting pressure on Washington DC, but that, “if the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased in terms of the main understandings that we have established, then, of course, that will be a fundamentally different situation [para a Rússia]In other words: the Russian side will never accept anything less than seeing Ukraine reduce its army from one million to a maximum of 600,000 soldiers, cede occupied Donbass to Russia and never join NATO – precisely the terms of the deal that Rubio got set aside for now.
Soon after, CBS News reported that Kiev had already accepted Trump’s new proposal and that all that remained was to discuss “minor details” for the Ukrainian side to close the deal. Not an hour later, water was boiling, with the Secretary of National Security of Ukraine, Rustem Umarov, that the delegations reached a “common understanding on the fundamental terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva” but that there are still many points to negotiate. “We now count on the support of our European partners” to “complete the final steps and reach an agreement with President Trump”, said the same source, after Zelensky acknowledged that there is still “a lot of work” to be done, but before that Kiev will be able to accept reducing its forces to 800,000 troops.
With Driscoll meeting with the Russians in Abu Dhabi and with the Ukrainian president preparing for a new trip to Washington DC, where he is expected to meet Trump at the White House, possibly this Thursday, we return to the initial question: what is the alternative? Or asking another way: what alternative can European partners offer?
“The alternative that European countries, including the United Kingdom, have is to continue trying to influence the process in the best way, as they have been doing and as they did now in Geneva, in order to essentially try to gain time”, responds Marta Mucznik, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, for whom “this entire discussion with Russia is premature” given Ukraine’s extremely fragile position today.
“The question is more what can Europe do to avoid being constantly caught in the curve and having to always do this damage management – that has been European diplomacy in recent months, the diplomacy of damage control, to avoid an attempt to impose a peace plan that amounts to a Ukrainian defeat and that does not lead to a lasting and sustainable peace.”
The headache of frozen assets
At a time when the Trump administration continues to look disdainfully towards Europe, negotiating the terms of the future security of Ukraine and the entire continent without involving it, the range of options available to Europeans is limited. And that brings us to the issue of frozen Russian assets, which the EU remains reluctant to use to help Kiev buy the weapons it urgently needs to face the enemy on different battlefronts, and reach the position of strength necessary to be able to negotiate with more security and room for maneuver.
At the end of four years of war, expectations were high that the EU of 27 could reach a historic agreement to use 140 billion euros linked to these assets as a “reparations loan” to put Kiev in a safer situation for at least two years. But in a huge diplomatic and political setback, the plan fell apart at the October summit in Brussels, faced with objections from Belgium, where a large part of these assets are deposited.
“The issue of financial assets is particularly relevant”, considers Ana Santos Pinto, highlighting the fact that financial markets continue to be autonomous in the EU, unlike trade or monetary policy, which means that, “if there is international dispute and Belgium has to reimburse companies and Russian holders of these assets, it will be left alone in this reimbursement”.
“What the EU was unable to do was agree on a common solution to support this use of assets, and in this case what was discussed for now, as the first element, is the use of profits, interest on frozen assets, not the assets themselves”, says the expert. “It’s a problem that the EU was unable to resolve and this meant that, in the original 28-point document, it was said that these assets in the European markets would be managed by the Americans, who would guarantee that 50% of the profits would be invested in the reconstruction of Ukraine. In other words: the Europeans would be legally responsible, but the USA would manage and profit, and the EU would still put another 100 billion on top of that.”
With the backward steps guaranteed by Rubio, it is not certain what awaits the issue of frozen assets, especially since negotiations within the EU are still ongoing and the Von der Leyen Commission itself needs to present its proposal in relation to this and a series of other issues. “What is said a lot in Brussels and Berlin these days is that this is the make it or break it moment [vai ou racha] for Europe, this is the moment when Europe has to prove that it can provide the support that Ukraine needs and try to change the course of events,” says Mucznik. “Basically, this is what Europe has done, it has tried to reason with the Trump administration and tried to influence the process – the question is whether it will continue to negotiate based on the Russian proposal or the European counter-proposal.”
“The question that arises now”, says Ana Santos Pinto, “is what position will European states – including the United Kingdom, and eventually also Canada and Japan – adopt. This is the decision point.” Given that Lavrov has already made it clear that he does not accept the reformulated proposal in Geneva, which foreshadows that he will drag his feet in the supposed upcoming negotiations, attention is turning to Europe and the United States.
“The basis of understanding, the Russian Federation’s reasoning, is: I’m not here to negotiate, I’m here to validate my assumptions – and that’s what is in the initial document. And given Russia’s non-acceptance of the new document, the question is what the North American administration will do and what the Europeans and NATO allies will do in light of the North American position”, says the IPRI researcher. “And that, I think, will go beyond this Thursday and will depend a lot on how, internally, the administration and the Republican Party interact and talk to each other – and how they present their arguments to President Trump.”
