Can Trump really impose peace on Putin?

“End the war in Ukraine in twenty-four hours. During his electoral campaign, Donald Trump had made this promise a leitmotif. However, on January 20, during his inauguration speech in Washington, the new president did not once pronounced the word “Ukraine”. And since his return to the White House, if he has been prolix to the Middle East or on Greenland, he has not detailed his “action plan” to put an end to the “carnage” which bloody east of Europe. After soon a month in business, and on the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion by Russia of his big neighbor, on February 24, 2022, this discretion, rare in the character, proves that from intention to the result, the way is more complicated than his electoral slogan suggested.

Because the new republican administration does not remain inert. Former national security adviser to former Vice-President Mike Pence, General Keith Kellogg was appointed “Special Envoy by President Trump for Ukraine and Russia”. The president plans to meet Volodymyr Zelensky and chat with Vladimir Putin next week.

But the boss of the Kremlin does not seem willing-in the short term, in any case-to accept a cease-fire. First of all because on the front, his troops continue to nibble on the ground in the Donetsk Oblast (in the east of the country), even at the cost of heavy human losses – Ukraine mentioned the figure of 1,500 dead or Wounded per day in the enemy ranks in December 2024.

The Russian army is only two kilometers from the industrial city of Pokrovsk, a communications knot, useful for the Ukrainian steel industry for its coal mine. Then, because the master of the Kremlin doubts the American and European will to continue to provide costly military aid to kyiv. Time, he believes, plays in his favor.

Trump in the face of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: Oil against minerals

In his book The art of negotiation, Trump recalls this essential rule: “To negotiate well, it is better to be in a position of strength. But what levers can the American leader operate on the Russian-Ukrainian theater? If he has threatened Putin new sanctions, those already enacted for years by Westerners have never had the Russian president before.

Last month, the American pressed the organization of oil exporting countries (OPEC) to increase its production to drop prices: it is thanks to its black gold that Russia can finance its military spending. “If the price drops, the war will stop immediately,” said Trump. But no producer state wants to assume this sacrifice.

For his part, the other protagonist of the conflict, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, multiplies the wages of good will. He declared himself ready, on February 4, 2025, to direct discussions with Putin. Above all, it makes American businesses are the access to the exploitation of Ukraine’s “rare lands”, these precious minerals essential for high technology. Trump, for whom diplomacy is only the extension of trade, can only appreciate. Even if the deposits in question are today, for the most part, in the part of the country occupied by the Russians.

Towards a negotiated outcome in Ukraine? Trump administration strategies

Under these conditions, bringing Putin to engage in serious negotiations supposes “to continue supporting the war effort of Ukraine and its integration into the Euro -Atlantic community”, maintains Thomas Graham, expert of the Think Tank Tank American Council on Foreign Relations. The Trump administration also continues the deliveries of military equipment. And the Mirage 2000 promised by Paris were deployed by Ukrainian aviation in early February.

In a report published in April 2024 by the very Trumpist America First Policy Institute, General Kellogg had drawn in advance the conditions for “daring diplomacy” in order to reach a cease-fire and a negotiated regulation: “The United States would continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defense to ensure that Russia does not advance its positions more and no longer attacks it after the ceasefire,” he advocated.

In exchange for these security guarantees, kyiv would enter into negotiations where, without formally accepting the loss of her territories conquered by the Russians, she would undertake not to try to reconquer them by force. For a white -bleeding Ukraine (80,000 died fighters and at least 400,000 injured according to American sources, plus 12,000 civilians identified according to the UN), such a scenario would prove to be a painful renunciation.

It would be necessary to prepare for opinion, mobilized by three years of patriotic fervor. General Kellogg judges a possible agreement in “a few months”. Trump, this time, was careful not to set a deadline.