By John Erath
Following the December 28, 2025 meeting of Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, a White House spokesperson said they were “ninety percent” agreed on a plan to end the nearly four-year-old war started by Russian aggression against its neighbor. No doubt the last ten percent will prove more difficult, but what we know already is cause for concern. Although peace in Ukraine is a desirable, even urgent, goal, going about achieving it the wrong way could ultimately lead to a less secure situation, and the parties to the negotiation should know better.
According to reports, the outline of the Trump administration’s plan for ending the war is for Ukraine to receive a U.S. security guarantee in exchange for potentially losing some territory to Russia. As with efforts to ram through ceasefires throughout 2025, this approach seems to assume that Ukraine is losing, or about to lose, the war on the ground and that for both sides the main point of contention is who controls how much Ukrainian territory. Both are oversimplifications. Ukrainian strategy over the last two years has been to cede ground gradually in hopes of inflicting crippling losses on Russian forces and has been at least partially successful. Each time Russian forces gain a few square meters, Kremlin propaganda states Ukraine must be on the brink of collapse, claims perhaps too readily accepted at face value in Washington. In any event, the war has never been specifically about territory; Russia’s 2022 aim, which has not changed, was to impose regime change in Kyiv. Focusing on real estate, however, even if it was not the main issue at the outset, reduces the problem set for peace negotiators to something seemingly manageable.
Except that it is not so manageable. After Trump promised during the 2024 Presidential campaign to end the war in “24 hours,” periodic efforts to force a “land for peace” compromise have failed – with tragic results. A recent BBC analysis found that each time Trump has shown interest in engaging with Moscow, Russia exerts more effort to boost its narrative that it is winning by occupying more villages, at a severe cost in the lives of Russian soldiers. Each of the U.S. administration’s efforts has faltered for the same reason: they do not address the key points of difference that led to war in the first place – Ukraine’s independence from Russian domination, or lack thereof. Alongside this lies the question of whether stopping the violence as soon as possible by rewarding aggression could be an acceptable outcome, clearly a moral issue for the Ukrainian people, not Washington. By making the issue occupation of land, the Trump administration has not only complicated its own goal of peace, but seemingly ensured that should a ceasefire be bullied into being, it will not resolve the conflict.
How can we know? Because we have seen this show before. In 2014, European leaders, with the United States trying for minimal involvement, put a priority on achieving an early ceasefire, in part because they feared the outcome of a conflict involving a nuclear state. The Minsk Agreement froze the front lines for almost eight years and turned down the violence but did not resolve anything. For Russia, the takeaways were, as are now apparent, that aggression can be rewarded and that concern about a conflict turning nuclear can be utilized.
But wait. There should be a new factor this time. The U.S. security guarantee for Ukraine is to be provided in exchange for Ukraine giving up territory. Unfortunately, this will not resolve anything. Russia’s ultimate aim is not to claim a few more Ukrainian villages but to establish a kind of colonial status for the Ukrainian state. U.S. assurances, particularly from an administration perceived as pro-Russian, and on the record as opposed to foreign military involvement, will provide little deterrence. This means relying on U.S. nuclear forces to do the deterring, and the last thing the world needs is another potential trigger for nuclear war.
We have another example of a case where a halt to fighting was allowed to take precedence over fixing the underlying issues: Bosnia in 1995. Intent on stopping the violence as soon as possible, the international community, led by the Clinton administration, forced through the Dayton Agreement, which ended the war but left Bosnia with a constitution that cemented the nationalist parties’ hold on power. NATO’s security guarantee only helped separate the combatants; it has not created the conditions for a stable state. Thirty years later, the nationalists remain in power, and Bosnia, as a whole, remains ungovernable.
The problem lies in confusing ends with means. The actual goal, or end, of a peace process should always be to establish a secure environment by addressing the issues that caused conflict. The Trump administration has instead adopted the goal of a ceasefire, essentially equating a halt to the worst of the killing with a resolution of the conflict – when it is really only a step, albeit an important one, on the road. Making a ceasefire the goal of the process brings along risks to regional and global security for the future.
Among these risks is nuclear proliferation. There is already a sense in Ukraine that it gave up its nuclear weapons too easily when it negotiated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, itself another example of mistaken goals, in which Ukraine returned Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia in return for security guarantees. With perceptions of increasing pressure to acquiesce to a loss of some territory “guaranteed” under the 1994 arrangement in return for further guarantees this will not happen again, it is perhaps inevitable that some Ukrainians are questioning the 1994 decision and even considering if nuclear weapons might deter further assaults on their sovereignty.
Seen in this light, efforts to force through a ceasefire as early as possible, however well-intentioned, carry serious risks if not managed correctly. This is not to say that it would be in any way preferable to prolong the fighting. Many people are suffering, and the conflict needs to end as early as possible. Rather, it is important to employ careful diplomacy to reach solutions that are sustainable and do not possibly lead to something worse.
