Can Trump really end the Ukraine conflict ‘in 24 hours?’

It’s hard to see how anybody could square such a complicated circle in such a short amount of time

The US presidential election is over and the final results are being tallied. Republican Donald Trump has already been declared the winner. The main question, from a Russian point of view, is how Ukraine’s military-technical cooperation with the new White House administration will develop and what Trump’s victory will mean for Moscow and Kiev.

Campaign promises

During the election campaign, the president-elect repeatedly stated that if he won, he would be able to end the conflict in Ukraine before his official inauguration on January 20, promising to do so in just 24 hours. 

Most likely, such statements can be attributed to pre-election rhetoric, but Trump has been known to make unorthodox statements before.

In February 2019, for example, he loudly promised to ‘solve the problem’ with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. However, the overall outcome of the meeting between Trump and Kim in Hanoi was that the parties were unable to reach an agreement. This means that the Republican has no successful experience in resolving complicated geopolitical issues.

As for the promise to end the conflict in Ukraine before he officially takes office, no details have yet been given on how he will implement his plan.

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And it is not entirely clear how it could work in practice in the near future. After all, until noon on January 20, Trump will have no power, especially in the area of foreign policy. Until then, Joe Biden will remain president. 

The 47th president will have to officially take office and form a team. Only then can be begin to implement his plans. There cannot be two governments in Washington with directly opposing views. And there is no danger of dual power in the US in this respect.

Under what conditions could the Ukraine conflict end?

Now to the prospects for ending the armed conflict in Ukraine. It is hypothetically possible to end it, the question is under what conditions and who will be declared the winner. At this stage, the collective West (and Trump is an unconditional and organic part of it) is not at all comfortable with concluding  the hostilities on the terms of Russian President Vladimir Putin: for example, Kiev’s non-aligned status, Russia’s retention of control over our new regions, and the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.

This would mean, at the very least, a political defeat for the US and its allies in the Ukraine conflict. In other words, it will turn out that everything Washington and Brussels have done so far has been in vain and has had no military-political effect. And there is no reason to believe that the new US administration will follow this path. Given the humiliation in Afghanistan, this could damage Washington’s foreign policy prestige. 

If Trump really wants to end the conflict in Ukraine, then (this is, of course, an assumption) he must frame the situation in such a way that Russia has not won the conflict (despite Moscow’s undoubted territorial gains) and Ukraine has not lost – that is, it has defended its independence and sovereignty.

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And in this matter, it is important for the West that Kiev be the first to declare its desire to end the armed conflict on such terms, so that it is not a purely Western initiative. The near future will show whether Trump can resolve these existing contradictions in such an efficient way. Thus, making it seem like the West has not lost, Russia has not won, and Ukraine has not been defeated. Of course, it will not happen in 24 hours, even with the greatest imagination.

What the future president of the US undoubtedly has in his arsenal is economic and military leverage over the situation. The new White House administration can put pressure on Moscow (by further increasing the pressure of sanctions, there is still room for such measures), and can place Kiev in an almost hopeless situation by sharply reducing the volume of supplies of weapons and military equipment. In other words, the White House clearly has options (and this is by no means a complete list) to increase the pain for the parties to the conflict.

The main question is whether Moscow will agree to such proposals and whether, in the time remaining before January 20, the Kremlin will not stick to the policy of fait accompli, i.e. direct victories on the battlefield, in order to orientate the situation even more in its favor.

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team