BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT — As the Trump Administration pressed over the past week to reach a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, two phrases captured the moment: “The ball is in Russia’s court” – a line from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and echoed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, after the U.S. and Ukraine presented a 30-day ceasefire proposal; and “root causes of the crisis” – the words used by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his response to the plan.
The diplomatic “ball” landed in Russia’s court in the form of the U.S.-Ukraine proposal for a 30-day pause in the fighting, and it put pressure on Russian President Putin to respond favorably – given a recent series of pro-Russian statements and measures from the White House.
But Putin’s “root causes” answer to the plan – he insisted that those causes must ultimately be resolved – suggests that the road to peace may be long. For Putin, those words are code for a host of grievances – in particular his claim that NATO's eastward expansion led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – that will likely lead to demands that are unpalatable to Ukraine.
The Washington Post recently obtained a document written by a think tank close to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) that laid out a list of Kremlin red lines: Russian control over Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine that its forces have occupied since the 2022 invasion; and additional Ukrainian land that Putin claimed in an October 2022 decree.irective. The document also calls any foreign peacekeeping presence in Ukraine “absolutely unnecessary,” further U.S. military aid for Ukraine “absolutely unacceptable,” and demands a sharp reduction in Ukraine’s military and the the removal of the democratically elected government headed by Zelensky.
“The FSB-linked document is entirely consistent with what Putin said on Thursday, that any peace plan must ‘solve the root causes’ of the war,” Max Boot, the Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for national security studies, wrote in the Post. “In Putin’s view, of course, the root cause is Ukraine’s attempts to assert its independence from Russian domination. .. By all indications, Russian objectives remain as maximalist as they were in the early days of the invasion in 2022.”
Now that the ball is “in Russia’s court,” what will Putin do? What if any concessions might he make? And how should the Trump Administration handle the negotiations?
Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski spoke with former Acting Director of the CIA John McLaughlin, Rob Dannenberg. former chief of the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division, and Vasily Gatov, a Russian media researcher with the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
THE CONTEXT
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by claiming it was needed to protect Russian-speaking populations in eastern Ukraine, and to “demilitarize and denazify” the country, arguing that it posed a threat to Russia. He has also framed the “special military operation” (his term) as a defense against NATO expansion eastward, namely the potential membership of Ukraine.
- Putin has demanded that a deal to end the war should include recognition of Russian sovereignty over territory in Ukraine that it has occupied, a commitment by Ukraine to not join NATO, protections for the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, and new elections in Ukraine to replace the government of Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Ukraine supports a U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire. The proposal calls for a full halt to all hostilities and confidence-building measures including prisoner exchanges. Washington has said it aims to use the interim truce to establish a longer-term peace deal. The U.S. resumed military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv backed the proposal.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agrees with the notion of ending the fighting but wants a long-term agreement. He raised concerns that Ukraine would use the pause in fighting to re-arm, and said that any ceasefire “should lead to lasting peace and remove the root causes of the crisis.”
- President Donald Trump said that while Putin’s response to the proposal was “incomplete,” there is still a “very good chance” to reach a deal to end the war.
THE EXPERTS
Putin has for years complained about the eastward encroachment of NATO all the way to Russia's borders, which he says was in violation of various agreements with the United States and the West, at or around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And when he talks about the underlying or “root” causes of the war, that's one of the principal causes from his perspective.
This security threat posed by NATO is largely a figment of Russia's strategic paranoia. When Putin's talking about the underlying causes of the conflict, it's Ukraine being free, democratic, and potentially a member of NATO.
There are other things in Putin's mind — and there's not a lot of evidence to support them: the allegations Putin makes that the Ukrainians are systematically eliminating Russian cultural and historic influence in territories of what is now considered Ukraine: forbidding the teaching of Russian language, removing Russian cultural objects, the separation of the Ukrainian church from the Russian church, all these things Putin views as hostile acts being taken by the Ukrainian government. And they are something that Russia wants the Ukraine to stop doing.
The Trump administration has made a strategic miscalculation from the beginning in its approach to Vladimir Putin. If there are any truisms about negotiating with Russia, arguably the most important is that you never concede anything to the Russian side before negotiations actually begin. So if, as part of your pre-negotiation conversations, you concede that there's no viable path for Ukraine to join NATO, you've conceded one big element of what the Russians might be interested in sitting down at the table and negotiating.
The second strategic error that the Trump administration has made is putting the pressure on the victim in this war. [Zelensky] is the leader of a country that's been invaded, lost thousands of its people, 18% of its territory, enormous damage, and suffered war crimes. And we're treating this guy like he's a bum. Putin's looking at this and saying, My goodness, the Americans are doing my job. They're doing my work for me. And then following that up with cutting off military aid and intelligence support.
You are removing any incentive for Vladimir Putin to negotiate seriously at this point, because we are in the process of accomplishing for Putin what he's been unable to do in almost four years of war.
When Putin looks at what's going on in the world, relations between the Russian Federation and the United States, what's going on in the battlefield in Ukraine, he thinks he's got the advantage, both in terms of his strategic position and on the battlefield.
What Putin does not want to do is to provoke the mercurial, emotional and vengeful side of Donald Trump's personality. So he's got to be a little bit careful now that the administration has negotiated this commitment on the part of the Ukrainians to a 30-day ceasefire. He can't just reject it out of hand, because you've heard that Trump has made threats – I'll destroy Russia's economy, I'll do all this other stuff. He's not the first American president to throw a lot of bluster and hot air out into the winds. But Putin doesn't want to risk that. Putin needs this war to end – he's got 21% inflation in Russia. They're moving towards a recession, casualties are horrible, and at a certain point, even the harshest regime of repression and oppression can't survive that forever. But he needs this war to end with a certain set of circumstances.
I don't see any indication that Putin is willing or prepared to concede anything. I mean, he wants all his terms to be accepted. It gets right back to that old Russian maxim: What's mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable. So Putin says, We're willing to consider this ceasefire, but we want a long-term peace agreement, which is practically impossible to achieve in my opinion, given Putin's conditions.
I could see him conceding to a 30-day ceasefire to hand Donald Trump something, to keep Trump on side, if you will.
As I closely observe the signals coming from Moscow, I am also trying to determine for myself what exactly Moscow and Vladimir Putin might want in a deal with President Trump on Ukraine. So far, I can see at least three layers.
First there is the military-political layer, which is primarily related to domestic politics:
In this area, Putin wants to gain more than what Russia has already conquered. Literally, he wants Trump to force Ukraine to cede some of the territories that have not already been occupied by Russian forces – the regions that Russia annexed in 2022 [the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya Oblasts]. This could also mean obtaining for Russia at least part of what was declared by the Kremlin before the war, such as an unequivocal NATO statement that Ukraine cannot be a member of the alliance. This package of elements could be presented domestically by Putin to the Russian people as a victory.
Then there is the geopolitical layer, which concerns Putin’s image in the world: It is clear that Putin is already gaining something simply by renewing a dialogue with the U.S. However, it is also fundamentally important for him that a ceasefire in Ukraine is presented as a settlement between the U.S. and Russia, and as a "deal between equals." This may be even more significant for him than domestic political considerations.
Then there is the military-organizational element. Any ceasefire in Ukraine will require resolving the question of what to do with Russia’s oversized wartime army. Should the mobilized troops be sent home from Eastern Ukraine, those territories which Russia claims, thereby possibly increasing tensions in the regions of Russia from which they were taken? Or should they continue to be deployed there, thereby increasing tensions within the units at the front line, since a non-fighting wartime army begins to deteriorate immediately?
Taking all of these elements together, it becomes clear that Vladimir Putin will try to extract from these negotiations with the Trump Administration the maximum level of humiliation for Ukraine – territorial concessions, political commitments, neutrality, the NATO rejection of Ukraine, and so on; the maximum degree of "respect" for himself — meaning that he wants Trump to court him, and to only make concessions voluntarily; and then the maximum possible military uncertainty, to justify keeping the Russian army where it currently stands. Remember, Putin has no concern whatsoever for the population of the occupied territories in Ukraine.
And finally, what does Putin not want? He does not want to accept President Trump's terms under pressure, let alone under any threats.
For weeks now, we’ve basically given away the things that the Russians most ardently desire. Even on the sharing of intelligence, it was a Russian parliamentarian who said two or three weeks ago that the United States should stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine, and lo and behold, we do. So we seem to be going down the Russian checklist of things that would help them come to the table. I suppose the president and others would say, that’s the main thing — get them to the table and then we can deal with all these other things. But if you’ve taken so many of these leverage points off the table, what are you left to deal with?
The main thing you have to know about Putin is that he knows what he wants, and he will come prepared to push hard for what he wants. And so [President Trump] will have to know well in advance what he wants. This isn’t a pickup game. It’s not improvisational. I think the president, for understandable reasons, given his background, I think he has extraordinary faith in his ability to go into a room and move people, persuade people, bring people along and so forth. But in dealing with Putin, this is a leader who knows what he wants. And you have to know very clearly what you want, and don’t give it away prematurely. We’ve tended to use a lot of fear and pressure with our allies. You have to use the same fear and pressure with Putin.
What are the Russians prepared to give up here? In any kind of settlement involving Russia that is acceptable to us, there have to be some security agreements to ensure the Russians don’t just continue doing what they’re doing in Ukraine. And they could be bilateral, or they could be in some sort of peace agreement that the Europeans work out.
What would worry me is that the United States would agree to a negotiated settlement to the war without firm security guarantees for Ukraine – and there would be a temptation to do that, to declare victory and step away from this. My conviction, based on following the Russians for a long time and listening to the Europeans, is that [Putin] would come at Ukraine again once he had rebuilt, and we would be right back in the same awful decision box that he put us into by invading Ukraine in the first place. And moreover, he would be tempted – without security guarantees for Ukraine – to seek some kind of provocation with regard to the Baltics or some of the frontline states like Poland or the Czech Republic. And all of the Europeans are afraid of this.
The overarching strategic goal should be some security for Ukraine beyond whatever agreement is reached. It doesn’t have to mean that Putin withdraws completely from Ukraine — it could mean that Zelensky agrees to cede some of the territory that Putin has taken, but in return for assurances of sovereignty and security on the bulk of Ukraine. That’s not the preferred outcome, of course, but realistically that’s all that’s left after the fighting and negotiating is over.
Then the tough point is, how do you get their security after that? It could be a series of bilateral agreements between the United States and Ukraine, Germany and Ukraine, Poland and Ukraine, other European countries and Ukraine. Putin would see through this pretty quickly and realize that’s not NATO membership, but it is the military equivalent of it, and maybe stronger in some ways because it wouldn’t necessarily require unanimous consent as NATO intervention would. Of course, NATO membership would be the ideal outcome. But short of that, then some kind of security arrangement that would rely more on bilateral arrangements – because if you don’t have the Allies involved in this, and something goes bad, we’re on our own. It would be foolish to go in without some prior consultation, if not complete unity, on every sentence or every idea.
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