The sufferings of the Ukrainian people have resonated in the corridors of power throughout the world as the Russia-Ukraine conflict approaches its three-year mark, yet the world has done precious little to put an end to this mayhem. Over the past month, the conflict has broadened and intensified, with Ukraine using ATACMs against targets on Russian soil and Russia responding with Oreshnik IRBM. These were not isolated incidents, but rather closely linked to the shifting geopolitical landscape.
During the last six months, Russia has been making only incremental territorial gains. While the Russian defense industry has been consistently replenishing the expenditure on military hardware during the conflict, the motivation of the troops has been declining. During the same period, Ukraine has faced numerous challenges, including inadequate armament supplies from Western allies, high desertion among its frontline troops, and low draft turnout. As the winter approaches, a surge of long-range Russian vector strikes has crippled Ukrainian electricity infrastructure, as has been the trend for the last two years, further adding to its woes. Russia swiftly responded to the use of long-range ATACMS on Russian soil by launching even heavier Oreshnik missiles. Russia publicly announced a change to its nuclear policy, signaling that the situation would escalate to a nuclear level.
On November 18, the outgoing US President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on the use of US missiles to strike targets inside Russia—an important decision with deep strategic implications. While Ukraine had been seeking this authorization for a long time, the White House delayed it because it believed it could escalate the conflict. This 180-degree policy shift by the White House didn’t escape the notice of strategists in the Kremlin. In response, on November 19, President Putin declared changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. The modified doctrine now treats an attack from a non-nuclear state backed by nuclear power as a collusive attack on Russia.
So far, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has failed to frame the war as an existential struggle for Ukraine, Europe, and the US due to the transatlantic alliance. If significant escalation in the conflict occurs due to the use of these long-range vectors on Russian soil, then Ukraine would have succeeded in getting the US irretrievably entangled in the conflict before the change of guard at the White House, much to the credit of Volodymyr Zelensky. From a domestic political perspective in the US, one could perceive the Biden administration’s escalation as uncontrollably igniting fires for the incoming Trump administration to extinguish, a tactic politicians often use to weaken their opponents. Aligned with the same strategy, the Biden administration has expedited USD 988 million before President-elect Trump’s inauguration on 20 January next year. The circumstances before Trump’s inauguration may compel him to adopt a radically different approach to the war, directly involving the US in the conflict, a move that would greatly delight the US military-industrial complex. However, according to Gallup polls, public sentiment in the US regarding US support for Ukraine isn’t as positive as it was at the beginning of the conflict. Similarly, the trend in Ukraine indicates that a majority of Ukrainians now favor immediate talks over outright victory as a means of ending the war. Even President Zelensky has recently shifted from his initial position of not ceding any territory to Russia to a position of NATO membership. He may agree to a NATO guarantee for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity instead of a NATO membership.
Putin’s Demands and the Mood in NATO
Expectations of a negotiated end to Russia’s war in Ukraine are mounting, but Russian President Vladimir Putin remains steadfast in his demands for any peace deal. These demands include Ukraine ceding the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya, as well as Kyiv’s permanent commitment to abandon its dream of joining NATO, demilitarization, and “denazification” of Ukraine. The Kremlin essentially wants Ukraine to return to its sphere of influence. These demands, while unacceptable to Kyiv, indicate that Putin remains upbeat about the outcome of the conflict one way or the other.
Realizing that time is running out for Ukraine due to the impending change of government in the US, NATO, under direction from the Pentagon, has enhanced intelligence sharing and executed measures for the protection of critical infrastructure in Ukraine from Russian action. Mark Rutte, the NATO chief, urged the alliance members to step up military aid to strengthen Ukraine’s position during any possible peace negotiations with Russia.
Many European nations, both overtly and covertly, oppose Ukraine’s NATO membership because they fear that if Ukraine joins NATO at this time, Europe could become embroiled in the ongoing conflict. Even the US may oppose Ukraine joining the alliance now. Generally, NATO has been avoiding the membership issue as long as Ukraine is actively involved in an armed conflict, and it’s unlikely that this will change anytime soon. Once peace negotiations start, Russia will miss no opportunity to remind the US of its failed 1989 commitment (by then US Secretary of State James Baker II to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last USSR President) regarding not expanding NATO eastward. This may in fact be one of the preconditions for any peace talks.
The public mood in Ukraine also suggests war fatigue. As per the Gallup poll of Nov 2024, 52 percent of Ukrainians want to end it at the earliest even at the cost of ceding territory to Russia, and only 38 percent prefer a fight until victory. The latter option had 73 percent takers among the Ukrainians at the start of the conflict. Also, only 24 percent of Ukrainians trust the Zelensky government, which may make it well nigh impossible for Zelensky to motivate the citizens to continue the fight any longer. Once Donald Trump assumes the presidency in January 2025, Ukrainians anticipate a decrease in US aid, perceiving him as more amiable to Putin than Zelensky. They also fear Trump may force Ukraine to cede large swathes of territory to Russia in return for peace. The public sentiment in the US and all of Europe today prioritizes the cost-of-living crisis over supporting Ukraine’s conflict with Russia.
Putin realizes well that he has time until the end of January 2025 to gain an advantageous position when the US opens peace talks with Ukraine. The extreme winters with subzero temperatures have put a pause on most Russian ground offensives in Ukraine. However, both sides will try to consolidate gains and hold the territories under their control. Putin has presented this conflict to the Russian public as a special military operation, utilizing only a small portion of military resources. However, sensing the limited time windows available till January 2025, Russia has withdrawn its troops from Syria. The ground troops withdrawn from Syria will be used to reinforce weakly held positions or launch operations in areas weakly held by Ukrainian forces. The Ukraine front will also benefit from the use of the withdrawn air forces from Syria. The fact that the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria resulted in the surrender of the Assad regime in Damascus is a different matter entirely.
A Probable Outcome
While Trump has praised himself for being an excellent dealmaker and vowed to end the conflict within 24 hours, he has not elaborated on how, and he remains as unpredictable as ever. A lot will depend on the briefing that he gets from his foreign and defense policy teams. The interests of the military-industrial complex heavily influence foreign policy and defense policy in any US administration. Often the interests of the military-industrial complex have shaped the contours of foreign policy. However, Trump will attempt to negotiate from a strong position, temporarily subduing Putin by increasing the military aid to Ukraine. Trump can also use the withdrawal of US military aid to Ukraine as leverage against a possible tough stance by Zelensky.
However, considering Putin’s past actions, it is challenging to anticipate any concessions from him regarding the fundamental prerequisites for peace, which include the surrender of four provinces to Russia, the abandonment of NATO aspirations, demilitarization, and denazification. While Ukrainians appear to be mentally prepared to cede territory, what they seek is a guarantee that the peace following the deal will hold—a very valid hope and doubt at the same time.
There doesn’t seem to be any moral or ethical justification for Ukraine to accept the peace deal; only the devastation and human suffering of the last three years, the effect on the economy, and war weariness may convince Ukrainians to accept it. Given that a deal that does not result in an honorable outcome for Ukraine could potentially damage Trump’s professional reputation as a dealmaker, he may consider enhancing the capabilities of the Ukrainian military through a generous aid package following the peace deal. The military aid would also act as a security guarantee for Ukraine against Russia restarting the conflict. Ideally, the frontlines and the conflict may remain frozen for years or decades, similar to many other conflicts around the world, with the buglers’ taps during memorial services for those killed overwhelming their comrades and kin, until one of the belligerent sides sees a political benefit in resurrecting it.