11/13/2024

Donald Trump’s triumphant return to the Oval Office, following his previous election defeat, investigations, trials, and even an assassination attempt, most closely resembles Napoleon’s return from Elba. To continue the metaphor, his primary goal during this term must be avoiding his own St. Helena. This will require not only decisively humiliating his opponents in courts and on the Hill but also demonstrating tangible achievements of his administration. Like his entire political persona, Trump’s campaign is built on inflating voter expectations to secure victory, but meeting such expectations will be challenging. Trump cannot afford a big mistake this time around, as he won’t have the luxury of another term to correct it. This isn’t just about Trump-the-president’s political legacy of challenging the establishment; it’s about protecting the freedom and well-being of Trump-the-businessman and private citizen.

While the underlying reasons for Trump’s victory are primarily domestic, it’s precisely within America that demonstrating quick policy results will be the most challenging. He faces significant opposition, but the main difficulty lies in natural inertia and the slow pace of social change resulting from expected economic and political reforms. Even with unprecedented support in both chambers, while Trump might quickly pass anti-immigration, tax, and regulatory legislation changes, measurable effects won’t be visible for at least two years under circumstances difficult to predict today. After the bitter pandemic experience, Trump will rely on something other than long-term forecasts — he needs publicly demonstrable results as quickly as possible. Therefore, foreign policy will become the main storyline of his first months in office.

While there are many reasons why the new phase of the Middle East conflict won’t bring Donald Trump quick laurels as a peacemaker — a topic that deserves separate analysis — this is a far more systemic and protracted conflict involving multiple parties unfamiliar and uncomfortable for Trump, compared to what he likely sees as a more straightforward Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which he will most probably tackle first.

In declaring his readiness and ability to stop the European war, Trump has never revealed his vision for a peaceful solution or concrete steps to achieve such a goal. Putin has also frequently changed his stated objectives for the “special operation” — authoritarian figures of this type generally possess greater freedom of action than more traditional Western European politicians constrained by laws, traditions, and propriety. But in this case, ambiguity has been elevated to a principle, which has become the starting position for upcoming negotiations. Let’s try to discern the contours of future agreements through this fog.

First, it’s crucial to understand that while traditional American mediation typically concludes with handshakes for cameras and historic treaty signings (e.g., Camp David and Oslo), current agreements, if reached, won’t be formalized in any comprehensive document — they might not even require a formal ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Businessman Trump and Putin, who operate by unwritten rules, don’t need documents; they trust behind-the-scenes coordination of practical steps, leaving each side relative freedom of interpretation for their respective audiences. The absence of formal documentation can be justified by the fact that the negotiating parties are not legally in conflict, and Ukraine won’t publicly participate in negotiations — despite Zelenskyy’s growing authoritarianism, he still needs a public mandate for concessions, and there’s no consensus regarding the possibility or type of concessions in Ukraine today.

From Putin’s and Trump’s perspective, Ukraine’s compliance with its role in the coming ceasefire or delimitation would be guaranteed by Western countries stopping weapons supplies, a task for the new American administration and Orbán, with Hungary being EU president for three months starting in January, the month of Trump’s inauguration. In response, Russia would provide Trump with Putin’s verbal guarantees to refrain from advancing troops beyond today’s frontline, which would then gradually transform into a demarcation line. The parties’ rhetorical exercises are secondary here. Vladimir Putin would interpret the agreements domestically as recognition of Russian victory, while Donald Trump would frame it as taming the Russian dictator. The only relatively formal Putin condition — NATO non-membership — requires just another alliance statement and is essentially guaranteed by Russian troops’ presence in Ukraine.

This framework is a bit simplistic, making it desirable but barely feasible without additional conditions. Trump needs to demonstrate not only his ability to stop Putin but also to push him back — therefore, some Russian troops withdrawing in one direction, most likely in the Kharkiv region, would probably be part of the bargain. The transfer of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant under the control of international forces (effectively returning it to Ukraine) would look good, especially since Russia isn’t prepared to bear responsibility for its condition anyway. In response, Ukraine would likely withdraw troops from the Kursk region, a move Kyiv is certainly willing to make, particularly since Zelenskyy lacks the real capability to maintain such a foothold in the long term. Such exchanges of concessions might not be articulated as direct agreements between the warring parties but could appear as natural frontline fluctuations — Russia has experienced such retreats from the war’s first year.

The main bargaining point may be the partial lifting of anti-Russian sanctions. For Putin, this isn’t just a crucial symbolic gesture in his dialogue with the West and a major achievement to present domestically, but a real necessity. The resilience of the Russian economy, despite apocalyptic predictions from Western bureaucrats and Russian opposition figures — presented by Russian propaganda as a management miracle and proof of genuine strength — is actually finite. The extremely high refinancing rate, “Nabiullina’s bulwark,” now slows down growth rather than inflation, with business activity sustained mainly through government orders. The distribution of “military money” to the population, combined with limited goods and services supply against tightening isolationist measures and rhetoric, leads to predictable results — inflationary expectations, inter-elite conflict, and administrative arbitrariness. The Russian market is on the verge of a financial crisis, and while partial sanctions removal won’t solve all its problems, it will undoubtedly delay and dampen its most unpleasant manifestations.

In fact, the quality and effectiveness of adopted sanctions as a tool dissatisfies the West, too (as we detailed in our report “Non-Military Methods of Pressure on Russia”). They’ve essentially led to losses for many European industries, loss of markets and routes, Chinese advantage in several aspects, and forced consolidation of once pro-Western Russian business elites around Vladimir Putin. However, revising even mistaken and ineffective sanctions for Europe’s own benefit would seem to European bureaucracy an impossible admission of weakness, if not guilt. Therefore, such an informal negotiation process, for which the U.S. would bear responsibility anyway, would be the best point for their correction and partial removal. Moreover, lives saved by the ceasefire would serve as a public justification for such revision. Certainly, this wouldn’t mean complete sanctions removal — only a roadmap for gradual relief in certain sectors. Nobody will lift personal sanctions from officials, parliamentarians, military leaders, and propagandists, nor does Putin want their free movement worldwide and the associated reduction in their total financial and ideological dependence. This is about easing pressure in the oil, industrial, trade, and transport sectors. Some softening of mutual accusatory rhetoric between Russia and the West might occur, but even this isn’t necessary — nobody needs or politically benefits from genuine position convergence; internal PR trade-offs and minimizing financial losses are what matter.

This scheme lacks one crucial element — a lubricating component that autocrats believe makes any deal feasible. In a world where annexations and contributions have been replaced by “delimitation” and sanctions, additional motivations and compensations are essential. The main element of such motivation must be funds for Ukraine’s partial reconstruction, without which Kyiv’s leadership’s willingness to not resist this arrangement cannot be secured. For its part, Europe, having spent billions supporting Ukraine’s military effort, cannot quickly mobilize billions to support a peaceful Ukraine. Direct American aid would contradict Trump’s public position on domestic priorities. Private investment won’t flow into a country with significant occupied territory. However, money to support Ukraine exists — it’s the frozen assets of Russia’s central bank in Europe, which will now need to be unfrozen.

I’m deeply convinced that Vladimir Putin has internally long “written off” these assets as unrecoverable losses. In case of escalation, rejection of ceasefire, or war continuation, they wouldn’t return to be at his disposal anyway and would eventually be confiscated. Isn’t it better to turn a blind eye to their loss for the sake of declaring Russia’s “victory,” thus gaining additional rhetorical argument for claims about Western theft and acquisitiveness, which we hear increasingly often from the Russian president? The former head of St. Petersburg’s economic bloc in the early ’90s will view this loss as payment for geopolitical and domestic political gain. Everything has its price — he’s certain of this maxim. Thus, he’ll regard the lost Russian deposits as due payment for eastern Ukraine and that the West will accept this price. Notably, such decisions will be “made” and implemented by European bureaucrats, not Trump, with whom Putin can continue dialogue without losing face. European companies will organically become beneficiaries of this confiscation — they will be reconstructing Ukraine, mainly Polish and other Eastern European companies whose governments are most uncompromising toward the Russian regime. Ukrainian authorities will receive a new source for controlled distribution. Everyone will appear externally dissatisfied, but the wheels of a new post-war reality, lubricated by this money, will slowly begin turning.

Let me emphasize again that we’re discussing a realistic scheme for transitioning the conflict into a frozen phase following Trump’s rise to power, not a moral or strategic approach to geopolitical system confrontation. In solving this tactical task, Donald Trump doesn’t hope actually to change the world for the better; Vladimir Putin, conversely, expects that any temporary agreement today will become forcibly permanent for the West, especially if such a respite allows Russia to create additional pressure tools against the opposing side. Ukraine’s government will essentially shift the responsibility for unfeasible further resistance onto its allies’ greed and cowardice, The Kremlin will kindly allow Russian society to rejoice in liberation from the threat of a looming mobilization, and each conspiracy participant will tighten domestic political screws even further at home. True problem-solving will await the next political generation. Despite the apparent bleakness of such a prognosis, this scenario (among other realistic ones in the nearest political cycle) must be considered optimistic.