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News18
a day ago
- Politics
- News18
Alaska Summit Takeaways: Putin's Gains, Trump's Setbacks, And Kyiv's Uneasy Relief
From red-carpet optics to Trump's shift on ceasefire and sanctions, the Anchorage meeting left Putin with quiet wins while Ukraine took comfort in the absence of a land-swap deal When Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Anchorage, it was not the arrival of an indicted war criminal but the grand entrance of a global statesman. The images were striking: simultaneous arrivals of Russian and US jets, a red carpet, and Donald Trump greeting the Russian leader with smiles before they climbed into the US presidential limousine together. For Ukrainians, who have endured over three years of missile strikes, trench battles and displacement, the images looked like a worst-case scenario unfolding in real time. Would America, Kyiv's most important backer, legitimise the man trying to dismantle their state? Yet the summit ended abruptly, with no joint press conference and Trump conceding there was 'no deal." On the surface, this looked like a stalemate. But the absence of a breakthrough did not mean the summit was meaningless. In fact, Putin managed to walk away with several advantages, even without signing anything. Putin's First Victory: Optics Of Legitimacy For a leader shunned by most of the Western world, simply appearing on equal terms with the US president was a triumph. Russian state media seized on the imagery of bombers overhead and the red-carpet reception as proof that Russia remains indispensable in global affairs. Time put it, Putin can argue to other nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, that Russia is not a pariah but a power with which even the US must engage. This symbolic rehabilitation was arguably Putin's biggest win. No sanctions package or battlefield gain could have matched the propaganda value of being treated like an honoured guest in the United States. Shifting The Terms: From Ceasefire To 'Final Peace' The biggest policy shift of the day came on the ceasefire question. In the run-up to Anchorage, Trump had publicly threatened 'severe consequences" if Putin refused to halt his offensive, signalling that Washington might escalate sanctions pressure. But by the time he left Alaska, CNN noted, Trump had effectively abandoned that line, embracing Moscow's preferred approach: skip a ceasefire and head straight into talks for a broader 'final peace." This framing matters. A ceasefire would have frozen fighting and given Ukraine a desperately needed pause from missile and drone barrages that have devastated its cities. By contrast, a 'final peace" framework allows Moscow to continue its offensive while drawing negotiations out for months or even years. Analysts point out that Russia has used this tactic before, talking peace while fighting on, as seen in Minsk I and Minsk II agreements after 2014. Relief From Pressure: No New Sanctions Another major outcome lay in what did not happen. In the weeks before the summit, Trump repeatedly threatened to expand sanctions, including secondary penalties on countries buying Russian oil. Those threats, according to analysts, may have compelled Putin to come to Alaska. Yet after the meeting, Trump downplayed the need to act, telling Fox News: 'Because of what happened today, I think I don't have to think about that now." This reversal gave Moscow space to keep financing its war machine. By escaping new economic punishment, Putin bought time for Russia's economy and war effort, even without conceding anything concrete in Anchorage. Ukraine's Uneasy Relief At 'No Deal' For Kyiv, the summit brought a paradox. The worst-case scenario, a Trump-brokered territorial concession, did not materialise. European officials told CNN they had feared that Putin would press for Ukraine to yield the roughly one-third of Donbas not yet under Russian control in exchange for freezing frontlines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Such a deal would have forced Ukraine into what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called an 'unacceptable surrender." Instead, Trump phoned Zelenskyy after the summit, in what the Ukrainian leader described as a 'long and substantive" conversation, and invited him to the White House on Monday. That invitation reassured Kyiv that its seat at the table still mattered. But relief was tempered by anxiety. Trump's willingness to align with Moscow's 'final peace" framing raised fears that future negotiations could bring renewed pressure on Ukraine to concede territory. Europe's Mixed Reaction In Europe, the response was guarded. Leaders had engaged in frantic pre-summit diplomacy, including a video meeting chaired by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, to discourage Trump from cutting a deal over their heads. After Anchorage, Merz said Trump had 'largely shared" European views. But the word 'largely" carried ambiguity. While Trump did not force a land swap, his readiness to abandon the ceasefire-first principle and his vague talk of security guarantees unsettled allies. For NATO, the risk is not just tactical but strategic. If Washington drifts towards Moscow's framing of the war, transatlantic unity could fracture, with Europe forced to sustain support for Ukraine while doubting US resolve. As CNN noted, for Putin, even this hint of divergence among Western allies amounts to a strategic dividend. The Personal Dynamic: Flattery And Manipulation Perhaps Putin's most subtle victory came in the personal theatre of the summit. He praised Trump's second term, reinforced Trump's claim that the Ukraine invasion would 'never have happened" under his presidency, and even echoed Trump's complaints about mail-in voting. Trump responded with visible satisfaction, later telling Fox's Sean Hannity he was 'so happy" with Putin's validation. For critics, it was another example of how easily Putin flatters his counterpart. Analysts warned that Trump's preference for optics and chemistry over preparation left him vulnerable to manipulation. Jim Townsend, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, told CNN before the summit that Trump 'likes the meringue on top. And I think that's how you can be manipulated." Trump's Empty Hands By his own pre-summit standards, Trump left Anchorage short. Ahead of the summit, he had promised some form of ceasefire, hinted at fresh sanctions, and told Fox News he 'won't be happy if I walk away without" progress. Instead, his post-summit boast was that 'the meeting was a 10 in the sense that we got along great." Former acting CIA director John McLaughlin told Time that Putin 'would not come improvisationally," and warned that Trump needed clear objectives. The contrast was evident in Anchorage: Putin stuck to his script, while Trump leaned on chemistry and optics. The result was a summit long on spectacle but short on substance. The Nobel Obsession And The Road Ahead One reason Trump may persist in his peacemaking push is personal ambition. He has long coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, and several countries, including Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, have even nominated him in the past. Le Monde reported that Trump even cold-called Norwegian officials about the award. The Alaska summit, however, underscored how far he is from that legacy. The next key moment will be Zelenskyy's White House visit. If Trump wants to maintain credibility as a would-be peacemaker, he may eventually need to reapply pressure on Putin through sanctions, military aid, or removing restrictions on Ukraine's use of US-supplied weapons. For now, though, there is little sign he is willing to do so. Conclusion: A Summit Of Optics, Not Outcomes top videos View all The Alaska meeting will be remembered less for what was agreed than for what it symbolised. Putin walked away with restored legitimacy, relief from sanctions pressure, and an American president echoing his preferred framework for talks. Trump left without the ceasefire he had demanded, with European allies unconvinced, and with Ukraine still wary of what concessions might come later. For Kyiv, 'no deal" was better than a bad deal. For Putin, 'no deal" was still a win. And for Trump, the self-declared 'President of Peace," Alaska reinforced how difficult it is to convert theatrics into results. About the Author Karishma Jain Karishma Jain, Chief Sub Editor at writes and edits opinion pieces on a variety of subjects, including Indian politics and policy, culture and the arts, technology and social change. Follow her @ More Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. Get Latest Updates on Movies, Breaking News On India, World, Live Cricket Scores, And Stock Market Updates. Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : Alaska Donald Trump - Vladimir Putin russia-ukraine conflict view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 18, 2025, 09:48 IST News explainers Alaska Summit Takeaways: Putin's Gains, Trump's Setbacks, And Kyiv's Uneasy Relief Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
European Council president: ceasefire would only allow Russia to regroup and attack again
President of the European Council António Costa argues that a temporary halt in the war in Ukraine would just allow Russia to strengthen itself and launch another invasion, which would be a strategic mistake. Source: Costa in an interview with Antena 1, as reported by European Pravda, citing RTP Details: Costa acknowledged the efforts made by the United States to bring Russia to the negotiating table but noted, "Russia did not fulfil what was agreed in Budapest, nor what was agreed in Minsk I or Minsk II. Let's see if it fulfils what is agreed now." Quote: "What really matters is a just and lasting peace. If this is the way forward, great. Let's hope for it." Details: However, he emphasised that a ceasefire allowing Russia to regroup and launch another attack would be a strategic mistake. Background: On 19 March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he and Trump had agreed to discuss the technical details of a partial ceasefire – halting strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure. Trump stated that his talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and then with Zelenskyy were "two very good conversations". Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
CNN
14-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: How not to end a war: 3 lessons from the last time Ukraine and Russia agreed a ceasefire deal
The ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States on Tuesday and accepted by Ukraine is part of a plan, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 'to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable.' It's a promise fraught with risk for Ukraine. The last time it signed a peace accord with Russia, 10 years ago this February, it brought only sporadic violence, mounting distrust, and eventually full-scale war. 'I told President Trump about this,' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview last month with CNN affiliate CNN Turk. 'If you can get Putin to end the war, that's great. But know that he can cheat. He deceived me like that. After the Minsk ceasefire.' The Minsk accords – the first signed in September 2014 and, when that broke down, a second known as Minsk II just five months later – were designed to end a bloody conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's then-leader Petro Poroshenko were signatories, along with the OSCE. The accords were never fully implemented and violence flared up periodically in the seven years that followed. Now, as Ukraine and its allies attempt to forge another path to peace, experts warn the failures of Minsk serve as a cautionary tale for today's peacemakers, and that the risks of history repeating are clear. Here's what we've learned: In 2015, Western military aid to Ukraine was minimal, and mostly limited to non-lethal supplies, though the Obama administration did supply defensive military equipment. 'The crisis cannot be resolved by military means,' said then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech at the 2015 Munich Security Conference, which coincided with the talks on Minsk II. Her assessment of those diplomatic efforts was blunt: 'It's unclear whether they'll succeed.' It didn't help that both Minsk accords were signed right after, or during, major military defeats for Ukraine. The first agreement followed what's believed to be the deadliest episode of the conflict in the Donbas, at Ilovaisk. In late August 2014, hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed as they tried to flee the town to avoid encirclement. Six months later, Minsk II was signed while fierce fighting raged for another Donetsk town, Debaltseve. That battle continued for several days beyond the initial ceasefire deadline. Marie Dumoulin, a diplomat at the French Embassy in Berlin at the time, says those defeats put both Ukraine and its allies firmly on the back foot in the talks. 'Basically the main goal, both for France and Germany, but also for the Ukrainians, was to end the fighting,' she told CNN. But, she added, 'Russia through its proxies, but also directly, was in a much stronger position on the battlefield, and so could increase the intensity of fighting to put additional pressure on the negotiations.' From a military perspective, Ukraine's Western-backed, almost million-strong army of today is almost unrecognizable from the underfunded and under-equipped force that took on the Russian-backed separatists in 2014. And yet, as Ukraine 'accepts' a temporary ceasefire proposal, it faces a double challenge. Firstly, Russia, has been inching forward in recent months on the eastern front (albeit at a huge cost to personnel and equipment), and inflicting almost daily aerial attacks on Ukraine's cities. And secondly, the US, Ukraine's biggest backer, has now withheld crucial military aid, in response to a public falling-out between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. The aid is now restored, but the episode has left Ukraine on shaky ground. 'That makes Ukraine's situation now very precarious,' said Sabine Fischer, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. 'Ukraine from… the Trump administration's perspective has become an obstacle to this normalization that they want for their relationship with Russia.' Experts agree the Minsk accords were put together hastily as violence escalated. Johannes Regenbrecht, a former German civil servant who was involved in the negotiations, pointed out in a recent paper that Ukraine's allies had reached the point in February 2015 where they worried that allowing Russia to continue unchecked 'would have resulted in the de facto secession of eastern Ukraine under Moscow's control.' With hindsight, experts say, the resulting document left too much ambiguity when it came to implementing the deal. The thorniest issue was how to link the military provisions (a ceasefire and withdrawal of weapons), with the political ones (local elections, and a 'special regime' in the separatist-controlled areas). 'Ukraine was saying, we need security first and then we can implement the political provisions. Russia was saying, once political provisions are implemented, separatists will be satisfied and will stop fighting,' said Dumoulin, now director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. That initial disagreement was an early sign of what Dumoulin and other experts see as Moscow's ultimate intention to use the political provisions of Minsk to gain greater control over Ukraine. Fischer argues that Trump's desire to end the war quickly suggests the US may not only be at risk of reaching a flawed deal in haste, but may actually be willing to settle for something that doesn't offer long-term solutions. 'Comprehensive ceasefire agreements are not negotiated quickly… they're very complicated, many intricacies… And I don't think that this is what the Trump administration is aiming for,' she told CNN. In the end, the biggest issue with the Minsk accords, especially Minsk II, wasn't what was in the text, but what wasn't. There's not one mention of 'Russia' in the entire text, despite clear evidence that Russia was both arming the separatists, and sending reinforcements from the Russian army. 'Everyone knew that Russia was involved, but for the sake of the negotiations, this was not recognized,' said Dumoulin. 'The agreements were based on the fiction that the war was between separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk and Kyiv, and that it was ultimately a domestic conflict.' There is no direct parallel today but there is, experts say, a risk Moscow is now using the false narrative that Zelensky is illegitimate because he failed to hold elections – Ukrainian law clearly states elections cannot be held during martial law – to rebrand the war as something that should be solved internally in Ukraine, and ultimately bring about regime change. And even more concerning for Ukraine is that the US has taken a similar line, with Trump last month labeling Zelensky 'a dictator without elections,' although he subsequently appeared to distance himself from that statement. The failure of the Minsk accords leaves no doubt as to the risks of perpetuating such falsehoods. Back then, the fiction that Russia wasn't an aggressor or party to the conflict, along with insufficient pressure on Moscow in the form of sanctions or the provision of lethal military supplies to Ukraine, ultimately meant Minsk never addressed the root cause of the conflict. 'The fundamental contradiction of Minsk,' wrote Regenbrecht, 'was that Putin sought to end Ukraine as an independent nation… Consequently, he had no interest in a constructive political process.' There's no evidence that that position has changed. In his speech on February 21, 2022, three days before the full-scale invasion, Putin described Ukraine as 'an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,' before claiming, 'Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood.' In January this year, one of his closest aides, Nikolai Patrushev, said he couldn't rule out 'that Ukraine will cease to exist at all in the coming year.' And so, even amid US promises of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and forcing them to accept territorial losses, the negotiating teams in Saudi Arabia have so far, it seems – just like their predecessors in Minsk – come nowhere close to tackling that core issue.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How not to end a war: 3 lessons from the last time Ukraine and Russia agreed a ceasefire deal
The ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States on Tuesday and accepted by Ukraine is part of a plan, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 'to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable.' It's a promise fraught with risk for Ukraine. The last time it signed a peace accord with Russia, 10 years ago this February, it brought only sporadic violence, mounting distrust, and eventually full-scale war. 'I told President Trump about this,' Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview last month with CNN affiliate CNN Turk. 'If you can get Putin to end the war, that's great. But know that he can cheat. He deceived me like that. After the Minsk ceasefire.' The Minsk accords – the first signed in September 2014 and, when that broke down, a second known as Minsk II just five months later – were designed to end a bloody conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's then-leader Petro Poroshenko were signatories, along with the OSCE. The accords were never fully implemented and violence flared up periodically in the seven years that followed. Now, as Ukraine and its allies attempt to forge another path to peace, experts warn the failures of Minsk serve as a cautionary tale for today's peacemakers, and that the risks of history repeating are clear. Here's what we've learned: In 2015, Western military aid to Ukraine was minimal, and mostly limited to non-lethal supplies, though the Obama administration did supply defensive military equipment. 'The crisis cannot be resolved by military means,' said then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech at the 2015 Munich Security Conference, which coincided with the talks on Minsk II. Her assessment of those diplomatic efforts was blunt: 'It's unclear whether they'll succeed.' It didn't help that both Minsk accords were signed right after, or during, major military defeats for Ukraine. The first agreement followed what's believed to be the deadliest episode of the conflict in the Donbas, at Ilovaisk. In late August 2014, hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed as they tried to flee the town to avoid encirclement. Six months later, Minsk II was signed while fierce fighting raged for another Donetsk town, Debaltseve. That battle continued for several days beyond the initial ceasefire deadline. Marie Dumoulin, a diplomat at the French Embassy in Berlin at the time, says those defeats put both Ukraine and its allies firmly on the back foot in the talks. 'Basically the main goal, both for France and Germany, but also for the Ukrainians, was to end the fighting,' she told CNN. But, she added, 'Russia through its proxies, but also directly, was in a much stronger position on the battlefield, and so could increase the intensity of fighting to put additional pressure on the negotiations.' From a military perspective, Ukraine's Western-backed, almost million-strong army of today is almost unrecognizable from the underfunded and under-equipped force that took on the Russian-backed separatists in 2014. And yet, as Ukraine 'accepts' a temporary ceasefire proposal, it faces a double challenge. Firstly, Russia, has been inching forward in recent months on the eastern front (albeit at a huge cost to personnel and equipment), and inflicting almost daily aerial attacks on Ukraine's cities. And secondly, the US, Ukraine's biggest backer, has now withheld crucial military aid, in response to a public falling-out between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump. The aid is now restored, but the episode has left Ukraine on shaky ground. 'That makes Ukraine's situation now very precarious,' said Sabine Fischer, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. 'Ukraine from… the Trump administration's perspective has become an obstacle to this normalization that they want for their relationship with Russia.' Experts agree the Minsk accords were put together hastily as violence escalated. Johannes Regenbrecht, a former German civil servant who was involved in the negotiations, pointed out in a recent paper that Ukraine's allies had reached the point in February 2015 where they worried that allowing Russia to continue unchecked 'would have resulted in the de facto secession of eastern Ukraine under Moscow's control.' With hindsight, experts say, the resulting document left too much ambiguity when it came to implementing the deal. The thorniest issue was how to link the military provisions (a ceasefire and withdrawal of weapons), with the political ones (local elections, and a 'special regime' in the separatist-controlled areas). 'Ukraine was saying, we need security first and then we can implement the political provisions. Russia was saying, once political provisions are implemented, separatists will be satisfied and will stop fighting,' said Dumoulin, now director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. That initial disagreement was an early sign of what Dumoulin and other experts see as Moscow's ultimate intention to use the political provisions of Minsk to gain greater control over Ukraine. Fischer argues that Trump's desire to end the war quickly suggests the US may not only be at risk of reaching a flawed deal in haste, but may actually be willing to settle for something that doesn't offer long-term solutions. 'Comprehensive ceasefire agreements are not negotiated quickly… they're very complicated, many intricacies… And I don't think that this is what the Trump administration is aiming for,' she told CNN. In the end, the biggest issue with the Minsk accords, especially Minsk II, wasn't what was in the text, but what wasn't. There's not one mention of 'Russia' in the entire text, despite clear evidence that Russia was both arming the separatists, and sending reinforcements from the Russian army. 'Everyone knew that Russia was involved, but for the sake of the negotiations, this was not recognized,' said Dumoulin. 'The agreements were based on the fiction that the war was between separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk and Kyiv, and that it was ultimately a domestic conflict.' There is no direct parallel today but there is, experts say, a risk Moscow is now using the false narrative that Zelensky is illegitimate because he failed to hold elections – Ukrainian law clearly states elections cannot be held during martial law – to rebrand the war as something that should be solved internally in Ukraine, and ultimately bring about regime change. And even more concerning for Ukraine is that the US has taken a similar line, with Trump last month labeling Zelensky 'a dictator without elections,' although he subsequently appeared to distance himself from that statement. The failure of the Minsk accords leaves no doubt as to the risks of perpetuating such falsehoods. Back then, the fiction that Russia wasn't an aggressor or party to the conflict, along with insufficient pressure on Moscow in the form of sanctions or the provision of lethal military supplies to Ukraine, ultimately meant Minsk never addressed the root cause of the conflict. 'The fundamental contradiction of Minsk,' wrote Regenbrecht, 'was that Putin sought to end Ukraine as an independent nation… Consequently, he had no interest in a constructive political process.' There's no evidence that that position has changed. In his speech on February 21, 2022, three days before the full-scale invasion, Putin described Ukraine as 'an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,' before claiming, 'Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood.' In January this year, one of his closest aides, Nikolai Patrushev, said he couldn't rule out 'that Ukraine will cease to exist at all in the coming year.' And so, even amid US promises of keeping Ukraine out of NATO, and forcing them to accept territorial losses, the negotiating teams in Saudi Arabia have so far, it seems – just like their predecessors in Minsk – come nowhere close to tackling that core issue.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia's Long Record of Broken Pledges and Treaty Violations
During the February 28 meltdown in the Oval Office among President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump—claiming that he alone can bring peace to Ukraine, thereby ending the largest war in Europe since World War II—declared, 'I think President Putin wants peace.' Earlier, when asked whether he trusts that Russia wants peace, Trump, seemingly based on publicly undisclosed conversations with the Russian dictator, said, 'I do.' Zelensky, in the most polite and respectful way possible under the circumstances, had been trying to raise a fundamental issue about the Trump administration's approach to reaching an agreement: Putin is fundamentally untrustworthy. His track record, both with regard to the war in Ukraine and more broadly with respect to previous agreements made with the United States, is consistent—he lies and cheats. And that is why Zelensky and Ukraine require substantive security guarantees that go beyond mere pieces of paper. The premise that Ukraine is the party posing an inconvenient obstacle to peace because it insists that any agreement must be backed up by stronger guarantees ignores the history of Russia's failure to respect the unbacked guarantees it had already agreed to. In September 2014—in the wake of Russia's illegal seizure of Crimea, its creation of irregular forces to take portions of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and finally the insertion of regular Russian forces into those territories—the Ukrainian government, the Russian government, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) negotiated the Minsk Protocol and Accompanying Memorandum. Minsk I, as it came to be known, called for a ceasefire and prisoner exchanges. The fighting continued, however, with continued gains by both the Russian irregular and regular forces, and by January 2015 the agreement collapsed. Seeking to restore the peace, a Franco-German-led initiative resulted in a new agreement, dubbed Minsk II and again signed by representatives of the OSCE, Ukraine, and Russia, creating a second ceasefire. Russian forces proceeded to violate that agreement and, after taking additional territory, halted—leaving an uneasy truce in place. Finally, in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Minsk II no longer existed and then proceeded to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was this sorry history to which Zelensky was trying to draw Trump's and Vance's attention during the Oval Office debacle—and in fact he had already provided U.S. negotiator Keith Kellogg with a list of some 25 Russian ceasefire violations since the 2014 destabilization of Ukraine. This tortured history, forgotten by most in the West, explains the Ukrainian position that any agreement must be backed by meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine. This is even more the case since Putin's violations of the Minsk agreements built upon his disregard of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which security assurances were provided by the U.S., U.K., France, and Russia when Ukraine gave up any claim to the nuclear weapons left on its soil after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The United States has its own long historical record of negotiations with Russia, which can be summed up by Ambassador Charles 'Chip' Bohlen's famous axiom that the fundamental Russian negotiating stance is, 'What's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable.' The late Secretary of State George P. Shultz (for whom one of the authors worked as a junior diplomat) amended Bohlen's adage by declaring that 'What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too.' The Russian record of adherence to accords negotiated during or after the Cold War makes for depressing reading and underscores the necessity of vigilance and prudence when it comes to any effort to negotiate not just an end to the war in Ukraine but to any broader U.S.-Russian arms control or geopolitical agreements. During the Cold War, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, along with the SALT I agreement, was regarded as the cornerstone of strategic stability, but the USSR was in violation of the treaty for years. Its construction of the Krasnoyarsk Radar contravened both the letter and spirit of the treaty because it was built not on the periphery of the country (for defensive purposes, allowable under the treaty) but in the center (for battle management). The Russians for years denied that the radar was a treaty violation before finally giving up in 1989 and dismantling it. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has violated or disregarded nine separate arms control agreements and treaties he either inherited or signed, including: The Helsinki Final Act of 1975, also known as the Helsinki Accords, wherein signatories pledged not to use military force to change borders in Europe The aforementioned Budapest Memorandum of 1994 The Istanbul Document of 1999 (in which Russia pledged to withdraw its military forces from Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova) The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 and 1992 (in which Russia pledged to withdraw from active service various naval tactical nuclear weapons and to eliminate all ground-launched tactical nuclear weapons) The 1992 Open Skies Treaty (in which Russia blocked U.S. access to parts of Russia clearly provided for under the treaty and also deviated from agreed flight paths over the U.S. that were mandated by the treaty) The 1999 Vienna Document (Russia falsified and concealed military exercise information which it had agreed to provide) The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Agreement (which Russia violated by covertly developing and then deploying a missile which exceeded the permissible range limits established by the treaty The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention banning retention of chemical warfare agents, and The 2011 New START Treaty (Russia has withdrawn from participation in treaty-mandated working groups and inspections) Additionally, Russia is almost certainly violating the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention by maintaining an active bioweapons capability. Russia also routinely violates the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement and the 1989 Dangerous Military Activities Agreement, including buzzing the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea and unsafe approaches to U.S. aircraft operating in the Black Sea. Recent revelations of intelligence suggesting that Russia might be prepared to violate the Outer Space Treaty by putting a nuclear weapon into orbit are yet another indication of Moscow's contempt for solemn international obligations. Given this deliberate and well-documented track record, the bar for holding Moscow accountable for its actions under any agreement it might sign regarding Ukraine's future, much less the kinds of nuclear arms control agreements in which President Trump has also shown an interest, should be exceedingly high. Indeed, the first Trump administration demonstrated it would check Russian bad behavior when it removed any constraint that the INF Treaty and Open Skies Treaty imposed on the U.S. after Putin had gutted those pacts. The second Trump administration would do well to review the policies it pursued during the first term in office when it understood those dangers. Putin may well seek to convince Trump he 'wants peace.' The question is, what sort of peace does he seek? Some Americans are convinced he would accept an independent, democratic Ukrainian state. But that hope-inspired approach surely misreads Putin's willingness to countenance an end to the conflict on any terms other than capitulation. As former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Richard Shirreff recently told the BBC's Ukrainecast, 'What Russia is about is removing Ukraine from the map as a sovereign state. … Because that's deep in the Russian DNA. And I think any American negotiator who doesn't understand that and thinks there can be a durable, lasting solution with a sovereign Ukraine, and that Russia will accept that, is deluding themselves.' Russian official statements since last month's talks in Saudi Arabia have validated Shirreff's judgments. Putin's representatives have and continue to indicate they will not make any concessions that allow the continued existence of an independent Ukraine tied to the West and have stressed that any settlement must resolve the alleged 'root causes' of the conflict (code for preventing a sovereign Ukraine from choosing its own geopolitical orientation). They specifically demanded an explicit reversal of the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit Declaration welcoming Georgia and Ukraine's aspirations to join the alliance at some future date. As a result, short of a total surrender to Putin's position—something no American president or Ukrainian president or NATO ally should accept—the prospects for a lasting, negotiated peace, are quite remote, as President Zelensky recently noted. If Moscow really does want peace, as Trump claims, it faces two substantial challenges—to actually negotiate in good faith and to abide by what is eventually agreed to. Russia's lamentable history of noncompliance shows that either one, let alone both, might be impossible for Vladimir Putin.
