Trump must forge Ukraine peace on American terms — not Putin’s
A peace in Ukraine that puts America first must do more than stop the fighting: It must re-establish American credibility, demonstrate American primacy and strength, and ensure that Russia won’t attack Ukraine or its NATO neighbors in the future.
It must increase America’s ability to deter China, North Korea and Iran.
It must be America’s peace.
Vladimir Putin is the obstacle to that peace — and has been for more than a decade.
In 2014 he invaded Ukraine to impose his will on an independent country he believed Russia should control.
When his invasion failed, he turned to negotiations, leveraging the West’s desperation to end the fighting. The Minsk II “cease-fire” agreement entirely favored Russia, but Putin wasn’t satisfied.
Emboldened by President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Putin invaded again in 2022, seeking to conquer Ukraine entirely. He has so far failed once more.
Now he wants to use negotiations to impose his will on Donald Trump, Ukraine and Europe.
Since 2021, Putin has repeatedly stated his demands, arguing that Ukraine cannot have an independent state or identity — that Ukraine is part of Russia.
His ultimatum justifying the ongoing invasion demanded regime change in Kyiv, Ukraine’s demilitarization and permanent neutrality, the rollback of NATO to its 1997 borders and limits on what the United States could do in that rump NATO.
Putin’s demands have only increased since then, now including the recognition of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions — even parts of those regions that Ukrainian forces still hold and the Russian military never took.
Putin’s would be a Versailles-style “peace” that would leave the Ukrainian military helpless against future Russian attack.
Putin also insists on dictating to Trump the terms of the negotiation itself.
He rejects discussions with Ukraine, whose government he insists is illegitimate (and whose right to existence he denies), and demands to negotiate only with the United States.
He says he’ll negotiate without “preconditions” — but insists that talks begin with the demands he has already laid out, and without any Russian concessions.
These stipulations are about more than getting himself a good deal in Ukraine: They’re about forcing Trump to recognize Putin as a peer and Russia as the great-power heir to the Soviet Union.
They’re meant to create the impression that Trump is suing for a peace that Putin might grant, a naked power play meant to cut the United States down to Russia’s size.
The incoming Trump administration must reject such humiliation, and the bad peace that is the only possible result of negotiations on such terms.
Putin’s confidence is fueled by his belief that he is winning militarily. The Biden administration, preoccupied with managing escalation and offering “off-ramps,” never undercut that conclusion — missing the point that its fecklessness encouraged Putin to keep driving to total victory.
Here in America, discussions about how much territory Ukraine should cede miss the fact that Putin has always demanded more than land.
Americans who contend that the prospect of NATO expansion provoked the 2022 Russian invasion ignore Putin’s own statement that Biden promised to keep Ukraine out of the alliance for at least a decade.
These arguments make Ukraine out to be the problem, and preemptive Ukrainian concessions the solution.
Ukraine has publicly acknowledged that it cannot insist on regaining all its territory by force — but Putin’s demands have only grown.
It’s time to recognize clearly that Putin is the problem.
The Trump administration should focus on imposing its will on Putin, and blocking Putin’s attempts to impose his will on Washington.
It should reject Putin’s demand to negotiate on his terms and insist instead that the United States with its allies preside over talks between Russia and Ukraine as sovereign states.
It should reject Putin’s demands that Ukraine cede territory it now holds, but should require Putin to return the lands Ukraine needs to defend itself in the future.
It should insist on Ukraine’s right to independence and to field armed forces of its choice sufficient to deter future Russian attack.
And it should protect America’s right to make alliances as we choose, through bilateral agreements or NATO membership.
Americans can decide what commitments to give Ukraine or any other state, but the United States must not let Putin or anyone else dictate what we can and cannot do.
Forcing Putin to negotiate on Trump’s terms will require making him recognize that he cannot win militarily — and that the United States won’t abandon Ukraine as Biden abandoned Afghanistan.
It will require finding creative ways to continue, and indeed increase, military assistance to Ukraine without further burdening the American taxpayer — and there are indeed ways to do that.
It will require patience and determination to force Putin to be the one who sues for peace.
That’s how President Trump can secure a real peace that ends this war on his terms — and how the United States can prove it is again formidable, credible and strong on the world stage.
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident fellow and director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute.
