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Both Trump and Biden’s teams concede that Russia would retain control over some territories claimed by Kiev, the report says
US officials privately acknowledge that Russia would keep roughly 20% of the territory currently claimed by Ukraine under a potential peace deal, the New York Times reported on Saturday. This is the view of both the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden and the team of President-elect Donald Trump, according to the paper.
Any potential armistice could therefore resemble the one reached at the end of the Korean War in 1953, which froze the conflict indefinitely but never led to a formal peace treaty, the NYT said. The prospective agreement would also have to include some sort of security guarantees, it added.
According to the paper, the proposal under consideration includes a ceasefire monitored by European peacekeeping forces, with British, German, and French troops likely taking the lead.
Two senior Biden administration officials, however, told the outlet that the key issue would revolve around whether the Trump administration will continue providing intelligence and arms to Ukraine, while allowing Kiev to carry on with strikes inside Russia.
The report comes after Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, acknowledged earlier this month that the conflict should be ended via diplomacy, and that it was not “realistic to say we’re going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, even Crimea.”
He added that Trump has accepted this, describing it as “a huge step forward that the entire world is acknowledging that reality.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed approval of the shift in tone from the incoming US administration. “We welcome the fact that the incoming administration has started to mention the realities on the ground more often,” he said last week.
Waltz’s comments somewhat echoed those made by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in December, when he conceded that the country doesn’t have the military strength to recapture all the territory it claims as its own. However, he ruled out any formal territorial concessions, saying Kiev would have to explore a diplomatic avenue to achieve its goals.
The Ukrainian leader has also insisted that Kiev should eventually join NATO to ensure its protection – a dealbreaker for Russia, which views the expansion of the US-led bloc towards its border as an existential threat.
Moscow has ruled out any freezing of the conflict, insisting that all the goals of the Ukraine military campaign – including the country’s neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – should be fulfilled. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also said Moscow would not concede any of its new territories, referring to Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions.
