US President Donald Trump backed away from the deadline he had set for a Ukraine deal by Thanksgiving, despite his desire to be seen as a peacemaker.
This is a crucial sign that the imminent outcome of their peace initiative is unlikely to result in a sudden agreement to end the Russian invasion.
The divergences between Kiev e Moscow remain very evident, and the reasons for their obstinacy are steeped in sacrifice, anxiety and bloodshed.
The country’s reluctance to accept any proposal that does not guarantee it full control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine is likely to remain clear in the coming days.
The latest US proposal presented to it apparently eliminates this crucial concession from the plan leaked last week, something that not even Europeans consider militarily or politically sensible.
Given the decade-long track record of this war, the three Russian invasions of Ukrainian territory, over years of diplomacy and deception, there is justification to doubt Moscow’s sincerity.
This repetitive and cyclical failure to understand the chasm between the two warring sides – outlined in two separate negotiating tracks – is ultimately why progress always seems so close, but also so unattainable.
Negotiating one, in the hope that the two will reach enough consensus to stand on their own, provides the tempting illusion of progress, but in practice it leads nowhere.
Friction points persist
Much of the proposed agreement involves hypothetical and theoretical ideas about future alliances, financing or limits.
But, as with parts of previous memos, these elements may transform into something more practical, or disappear altogether, in the months following the signing of the agreement.
Ukraine will not need an army of 600,000 men, the limit proposed in the draft agreement, if it truly seeks peace.
NATO membership is likely to become less urgent and less viable in peacetime, when NATO has to demobilize its armies and deal with the economic nightmare of a post-war economy, with the damage this will do to the integrity of its armed forces.
Will Russia rejoin the G8?
Maybe he wants to, but the idea of Putin shaking hands, at a summit, with the leaders of European countries that still despise him seems unlikely.
Who will pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine? Any notion of the opacity of trade relations between the two countries will tell you that this will not be simple or transparent, whatever the plan.
These points are important in any agreement, but they can change upon first contact with reality.
The most crucial question is whether any agreement will actually prevent war. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will likely have to deal with a terrible choice again.
He needs to weigh the value of future security guarantees, against the real and inevitable damage that concession of Donetsk would cause to his political and military position, as well as that of Ukraine.
It is a bad choice if the agreement is maintained. There is no choice if, in the long term, as before, the Kremlin does not honor the agreement.
But the immediate future does not bring better news. A myriad of crises surround Zelensky’s government.
The deadline set by President Donald Trump took the spotlight off a corruption scandal that resurfaced on Friday with the news that anti-corruption investigators searched the home of his chief of staff and top negotiator, Andriy Yermak.
Crisis in the armed forces of Ukraine
Funding from Kiev’s European allies is in doubt for next year, although the European Union recently said it believes it can fill the gap.
And on the front line, three distinct crises are unfolding: Russia advances rapidly in Zaporizhia, slowly but inevitably in Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, and in Kupyansk, further north.
Ukraine cannot fight so many hot spots with so few soldiers.
The rest of Donetsk under Kiev control is also in danger this winter.
The important military center of Kramatorsk is already subject to short-range Russian drone attacks as Moscow’s forces are close enough.
Kiev will not regain territory from Russia anytime soon. The challenge for Kiev and its allies is not when they can reverse the course of the war, but rather whether they can get the Russians to give in first.
The tacit hope of Kiev and its allies, perhaps in vain, is that Ukraine will be able to push Russia’s brutal waste of manpower and its total economic focus on war to the limit, and witness its collapse.
It is impossible to predict, in societies as closed as Russia, how far away collapse might be.
The Wagner Group’s rebellion in 2023 seemed fanciful, until Yevgeny Prigozhin’s men were on their way to Moscow for 72 turbulent hours.
More evident and acute problems
The fight Zelensky faces is fraught with risk. Russia has more resources and is making significant advances on the ground.
Ukraine’s fight is existential – it does not have Moscow’s luxury of one day deciding that enough is enough and stopping the attack. But the accumulated impact of the past 10 months of slowness, diplomatic confusion and sudden changes has made an unthinkable deal closer to possibility.
The idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Moscow in exchange for peace was openly ridiculed by Kiev and Europe earlier this year, and throughout the Biden administration.
Now it has found its way into the first version of Trump’s 28-point peace plan.
It disappeared from the leaked European counterproposal, but evidently not from Putin’s maximalist wish list.
A cycle will certainly repeat itself. Trump’s special envoy Witkoff will likely hear once again during his visit to Moscow that Putin will not budge on his demand that Ukraine give up Donetsk in exchange for peace.
Witkoff will communicate this to Trump. Zelensky will come under pressure again, and another Thanksgiving-like deadline could emerge.
