What to expect as Trump and Putin thrash out a ceasefire in Ukraine

Peace – or at least a ceasefire – seems very likely soon, writes Mark Almond – but the deal’s success hinges on delicate negotiations, territorial concessions and security guarantees. And neither the US nor the Russian leader is particularly known for delicacy...

The Kremlin has now confirmed that Vladimir Putin will speak on the phone to Donald Trump tomorrow. The White House says Ukraine’s President Zelensky will come to Washington on Friday. Peace – or at least a ceasefire – seems very likely soon.

But never forget, the devil is in the details – and a hastily cobbled-together deal could be very fragile. There will be hardliners on either side who don’t want to give peace a chance.

Let’s consider what might be in a deal agreeable to Trump and Putin – and swallowable by Zelensky.

Where any ceasefire line would run is a key question. But it would be deceptively simple to say it should be where the fighting front is today – that gives Russia an incentive to keep attacking until the last possible moment to gain as much territory as possible; and for Ukraine to try a surprise counterattack to gain at least a symbolic positive marker for the end of fighting.

The banks of the Dnipro River offer one long “natural” dividing line, with the Ukrainians holding the western bank and the Russians still stuck on the east – though they have been trying to land troops to the west.

Elsewhere, northwards to the Ukrainian-Russian border just east of Kharkiv and north of Sumy, the front line is very contested.

Without international observers – or umpires – to delimit the “line of contact” and patrol it, hardliners on either side (as well as chance confrontations in the grey zone between the two armies) could easily reignite conflict – and that’s without a cynic like Putin deciding to renew the war when the West’s interest, particularly America’s, has moved on.

While Washington’s European allies – including Britain and Canada – have been talking tough about stepping in to fill the gaps left by Trump freezing US support for Ukraine, they lack the military equipment and armed forces to do so.

Russia refuses to accept them as “peacekeepers” because it won’t agree to Nato troops on its border with Ukraine, or in the country at all. Preventing Ukraine from joining Nato or acting as a base for it has been a key war aim for Putin.

Even if the EU and UK did rustle up 10,000 troops to act as a tripwire, that’s a tiny force for a vast area with a 1,000km front line.

And even if Kyiv could swallow territorial concessions to Russia – a very hard swallow that may be sweetened by being “temporary” ahead of a final peace treaty – President Zelensky wants American security guarantees that Putin won’t be able to restart the war without facing a harsh, American-led response.

Don’t forget, the Russians want assurances that Ukraine won’t use a ceasefire to rearm and attack later.

If Trump can get Putin to agree to a deal – and then push Zelensky to sign, however humiliating its terms – it will include a ban on Nato membership and Nato forces and trainers on Ukrainian territory. Russia’s demand for its own security to be prioritised will leave Ukraine insecure.

Ukraine’s best hope is that Trump will not want his peace deal to fray while he is still in the White House (his peace deal with the Taliban only unravelled when Joe Biden was in office). Trump’s desire to protect “his” peace will give much less leeway for Putin to break it.

Trump has hinted that a peace deal following a ceasefire will involve Ukraine’s territory, assets and energy.

Ukrainian officials always refer to “temporarily occupied zones” of their country. Putin will want to push the US to recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea, as well as the four mainland regions it claims. The Kremlin could probably accept a fudge of Kyiv’s sovereign claims if the Americans led a ripple of international recognition of Russia’s war gains, regardless of Ukrainian qualms.

Meanwhile, Russian airstrikes have taken a heavy toll on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The Russian army’s control of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (Europe’s biggest) on the Dnipro, alongside a nearby huge Soviet-era hydroelectric dam in the frontline zone, has been a focus of concern for a military strike that might cause a Chernobyl-style radioactive leak.

But access to its power supply would help Ukraine’s post-conflict economic recovery, just as it could fuel the electricity needs of the Russian-occupied zones in the Donbas to the southeast. The reactors are, of course, a Russian model, so practical cooperation to keep them running would make sense, but the bitterness of the war will make cooperation – even in mutual interest – difficult.

Trump’s demands for access to Ukraine’s natural resources, especially its minerals and rare earths (rumoured to be worth $500bn or more), mean that Zelensky will have to sign them over on Friday if he is to have any hope of tying the Americans into underwriting a peace deal with Russia.

The Europeans don’t have that mix of money, raw power and personal contact with Putin which Trump can deploy to get both Russia and Ukraine to make a peace that neither really believes in.

The fact is that this fragile peace might last, however distasteful, because each cannot afford to offend the American president without paying a very heavy price.

Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford