How will Donald Trump handle the war in Ukraine?

“THEY’RE DYING, Russians and Ukrainians,” lamented Donald Trump last year. “I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done…in 24 hours.” In January Mr Trump returns to the White House. Can he put an end to the largest war in Europe since 1945? The odds are stacked against him. He will need to overcome Russian recalcitrance, Ukrainian indignation and European disunity. “It’s like Christopher Columbus trying to see over the ocean, thinking he is headed for India,” says Konstantin Gryshchenko, a former Ukrainian deputy prime minister and foreign secretary. The fear is that Mr Trump will push through a bad deal for appearances’ sake.

If Mr Trump’s priority is to strike a deal—any deal—then he could simply cut aid to Ukraine and insist that it accept Russia’s demands. Some in his circle, such as his son Donald junior, delight in the idea that Mr Trump will cut off Ukraine’s “allowance”, ie, the billions America is giving it in military and economic support to fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” declared J.D. Vance, the vice-president-elect, in 2022. “I…remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war,” he added in April this year.

If America cut Ukraine adrift, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, could more or less dictate terms. In June he set out his stall: Ukraine should withdraw its forces from four of the provinces annexed by Russia—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia—even though roughly a quarter of their territory remains in Ukrainian hands (Russia would also keep Crimea, which it occupied in 2014). Ukraine would have to drop plans to join NATO, too.

That is doubtless posturing. In November Russian officials told Reuters, a news agency, that they would consider merely freezing the current lines with “room for negotiation over the precise carve-up” of territory. But with Ukrainian forces retreating, the Russian defence industry humming and North Korean troops joining the fray on Russia’s side, Mr Putin believes he has the upper hand. Although economic and social pressures are rising at home, he is in no rush to end the war. He could even dust off some of the humiliating demands Russian negotiators made in peace talks in 2022, including strict limits on Ukraine’s armed forces (no more than 85,000 personnel), tanks (342 at most) and missiles (a maximum range of 40km) because he knows the Ukrainians would not accept this, even under pressure.

Some observers believe, however, that Mr Trump would consider a Ukrainian defeat bad both for America and his own image. “Trump won’t be played for a sucker,” argues Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council, a think-tank in Washington, who recently co-wrote an article for The Economist with Michael Waltz, whom Mr Trump has chosen as his national security adviser. “He will walk away from a bad deal.” Mr Trump, insiders say, fears a failure in Ukraine would dent his popularity, just as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 hurt President Joe Biden.

Mr Waltz has acknowledged that America may need leverage to extract better terms from Mr Putin. He has suggested that America expand gas exports, crack down on Russian oil sales, provide more weapons to Ukraine and ease restrictions on their use if Mr Putin does not come to the table. Kurt Volker, who served as a special envoy to Ukraine during Mr Trump’s first term, suggests Mr Trump’s approach might initially be simple: a demand to “stop the war” without conditions.

Others in MAGA-land are also thinking about how a deal might be enforced. Keith Kellogg, a retired general whom Mr Trump this week picked as special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, and Fred Fleitz, a CIA veteran at a pro-Trump think-tank, have proposed that America “continue to arm Ukraine…to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a ceasefire”. Ukraine would not be asked to cede territory and America and its allies would lift sanctions and normalise ties only if Russia were to sign a settlement “acceptable to Ukraine”. If Mr Trump were to embrace these proposals, Ukrainians would be delighted.

Another question is what role Europe will play. Advisers to Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, worry that diplomacy will become an American-Russian affair, with both Ukraine and Europe left out. “I don’t think we should fight Trump on the point that we want peace in Ukraine,” says a diplomat from eastern Europe. It need not be only apologists for Russia who call for the war to end, he argues. But the goal, he adds, should be a lasting peace, not a half-baked one. Mr Trump is still “playing with ideas,” says the diplomat, “and he’s looking for input from Europeans”.

Input, yes, but perhaps also a pound of flesh. Mr Trump believes that when it comes to helping Ukraine, as with European defence in general, Europeans should be bearing most of the cost. European countries allocated around €118bn ($124bn) in aid to Ukraine from January 24th 2022 to August 31st 2024, compared with America’s €85bn—almost a 60:40 ratio (see chart). But if Mr Trump were to demand an 80:20 split instead, so be it, suggests the European diplomat, who thinks that a modest price to pay for America’s continued involvement. Europe’s war fatigue is overstated. In Germany, for instance, according to a recent Politbarometer poll, 43% of respondents would like aid to Ukraine to increase whereas only 24% want it reduced.

The problem is that, if a deal is done, political support for maintaining aid may dissipate quickly. Russia is spending more than 8% of GDP on defence, and so could continue to re-arm. Ukraine, meanwhile, would be forced to demobilise to revive its economy. That might tempt Mr Putin to try again in a year or two.

Ukraine, naturally, would like firm security guarantees. That would ideally come in the form of NATO membership. But Mr Trump has often disparaged the alliance. “NATO is a relic and should be scrapped,” wrote Pete Hegseth, his pick for defence secretary, four years ago. And even if Mr Trump were to come around, it is possible that other members of NATO, such as Hungary, would veto Ukraine’s accession.

Some in Mr Trump’s entourage have suggested that Europe instead form a coalition of the willing to deploy troops inside Ukraine. Any deployment would severely tax Europe’s armed forces. Eastern European countries, several of which host multinational NATO battlegroups, would not want to give them up. Nor would NATO’s high command want to hand over the alliance’s reserve forces. Money is another concern. Germany’s planned deployment of a brigade to Lithuania, for example, may cost as much as €6bn to set up and €800m a year to run. Bases in Ukraine would involve more complex logistics and require more sophisticated defences. Locating five brigades there, say, could easily exceed the €43.5bn spent to date by EU countries on military aid to Ukraine. Above all, it is unlikely that Europeans would send any troops without at least some American involvement, although air cover and indirect support might suffice.

European governments do not appear to have thought all this through in detail, says a person familiar with the issue. “We haven’t detected any sort of serious planning effort behind the big idea.” But the big idea is at least being discussed at high levels in European capitals. Northern and eastern European states would probably be the most comfortable with it; western and southern ones less so. Although public opinion appears to be opposed in many European countries, were a deployment to take place after a cessation of hostilities as part of a multinational European force, it might seem more palatable.

Mr Macron has publicly aired the idea of sending French troops to Ukraine. Britain would also be a plausible member of any expeditionary force. Its armed forces have been heavily involved in Ukraine and Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister, is keen to rebuild security and defence ties with European partners. German officials are more hesitant. But Friedrich Merz, the leader of the right-wing Christian Democrats and the likely chancellor after elections in February, is thought to be more open to the idea.

Move on and blame Biden

These plans depend, however, on Mr Trump retaining some interest in a deal. Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, who served in the White House under Mr Trump, argues that the isolationist wing of the Republican Party is ascendant. Mr Trump may look for an easy deal through a combination of “carrots for Russia and sticks for Ukraine”: the offer to lift sanctions on Russia and the threat to cut off weapons to Ukraine. If Ukraine collapses, says Mr Ciaramella, Mr Trump will simply blame Mr Biden.

Ukrainian collapse is not inevitable, though Russian advances are likely to accelerate in the coming weeks. Mr Biden’s administration is hastening arms deliveries during its final weeks in office, spending the last of the funds authorised by Congress and rushing whatever it can to the front. It has eased rules restricting the use of certain missiles against targets in Russia and is transferring landmines to hamper Russia’s advance. Weapons will continue to flow well into next year, unless Mr Trump halts shipments. Senior Biden administration officials argue Ukrainian stocks of artillery shells, anti-aircraft missiles and other munitions are healthier than they have been for a long time.

More out of hope than conviction, America’s allies express confidence that Mr Trump will not sell out Ukraine. Many of Ukraine’s top officials welcomed Mr Trump’s election. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has floated special access for American firms to Ukraine’s deposits of rare minerals as a quid pro quo that may appeal to the transactional Mr Trump. Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s military committee, speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada in late November, declared, “I cannot imagine it’s in the interest of the United States that Putin comes out of any possible peace negotiations as the winner.” A European foreign minister refused to entertain the idea that Ukraine would be abandoned. “It would be such a shock that it’s not going to happen.”

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