Trump vowed to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Here's what he needs to do

Twenty-four hours, six months, 100 days, at least a year. The Trump administration’s projected timelines to end the Russia-Ukraine war have been anything but consistent.

Donald Trump and his envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, claim to be working on a plan to broker an agreement to end the war and reach a peace deal.

In the three years since the war that broke out in 2022, Russia has lost ground at times, it has steadily gained territory in the east. In contrast, Ukraine has constantly been on the back foot in its own territory, attempting to change the calculus with a recent surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.

Analysts believe Kiev did this to use Kursk as a bargaining chip. But that doesn’t appear to be working out with Moscow clawing back its territory.

Ukraine, eager to preserve what remains of its territory, is likely to be willing to be a part of peace talks. But securing Moscow’s participation will be Trump’s first challenge.

The peace deal would first require both sides to agree to talks. Here’s what the US would need to consider when brokering the talks:

Before negotiations begin

The Trump administration is still formulating its policy, but Kellogg has hinted at a pathway: Ukraine would hold presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of the year as part of an initial truce with Russia. American officials are reportedly exploring whether a ceasefire could precede the elections before brokering a settlement.

"Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so," Kellogg says. "I think it is good for democracy. That's the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov swiftly echoed Kellogg’s statement calling “President Zelenskyy an illegitimate leader whose term has ended.”

Zelenskyy, whose presidency was due to end in May 2024, has said that elections will take place only after martial law—introduced to bolster Ukraine’s war effort—is lifted.

For now, the state of emergency explicitly prohibits elections.

Putin, meanwhile, insists that Zelenskyy lacks the legal authority to negotiate in the absence of an electoral vote.

Political manoeuvring is already underway.

Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-president Petro Poroshenko have been seen courting foreign officials, fuelling speculation about their ambitions. Whether elections would make Russia more amenable to negotiations is a different question.

“This would depend on the outcome,” Eugene Chausovsky, Senior Director, Analytical Development and Training at New Lines Institute, told TRT World. “Under the current political climate, it would likely not lead to a pro-Russian or Russia-friendly government in Ukraine.”

Then there is a Catch-22 sequencing.

Ukraine’s martial law, in place since 2022, has prevented elections despite Zelenskyy’s term expiring in 2024. While Washington has pressed Kiev on holding polls to uphold democratic norms, Ukrainian officials argue that doing so now risks internal division and Russian interference.

“To hold elections, you need to cancel martial law. And to cancel martial law, you need a ceasefire,” told Oleg Ignatov, Crisis Group's Senior Analyst for Russia, TRT World. “So does it mean, for example, that Russians could agree with such suggestions?”

Trump has also suggested leveraging his preferred tool—tariffs and sanctions—to pressure Moscow into a deal. However, tariffs, in particular, may not pose much of a threat to Russia.

“Nobody understands how it could work, because Russia and the US almost don’t have bilateral trade,” Ignatov says. “It’s a very small number.”

Another possible precondition is a demilitarised zone, requiring Ukrainian and Russian forces to withdraw from the frontlines. But who moves where is the point of contention.

“It could mean not that Ukrainians and Russians both withdraw from some parts of territories,” Ignatov added, “but that Russians will insist Ukrainians should withdraw.”

At the negotiating table

Once both sides sit down, the talks will likely revisit the terms discussed at the Istanbul Communique. That was the most serious diplomatic effort to negotiate a truce with Türkiye’s mediation in early 2022, but talks collapsed over key disagreements.

Under the Istanbul Communique, Ukraine signalled a willingness to let go of its NATO ambitions, forgo other Western military alliances, and impose limits on its manpower and equipment—though the exact limits remained contested.

A major contentious point between the two sides was Article 5, modelled after NATO’s collective defence clause. This provision would have allowed guarantor states—including the United States, Britain, France, China, and Russia—to defend Ukraine in the event of an armed attack. Moscow, however, demanded veto power over any such intervention, prompting Kiev to abandon the talks.

The sticking points will be familiar.

Kiev would have to formally renounce its NATO bid. Ukraine’s NATO aspirations remain a red line for Russia and a low priority for Trump.

“The question then is what would the US (as well as the Europeans) be willing to offer to Ukraine as an alternative to NATO membership,” Chausovsky says, “and whether this would be enough for serious negotiations between Kiev and Moscow.”

Then there is the question of borders.

In June 2024, Putin said that for negotiations to start, Ukrainian troops would have to pull out of a total of four Ukrainian provinces – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – although they weren’t totally under the control of Moscow.

An alternative option would be to freeze the conflict along current frontlines, ceding Crimea and the Donbas region to Russia along with other occupied territories.

Zelenskyy has floated an idea to deploy a 200,000-strong European peacekeeping force to enforce a settlement. Ignatov is sceptical and does not believe that it is feasible.

“I think it doesn’t look realistic right now, and everybody understands this,” he says. “First of all, it will be very expensive. Secondly, without the US it will not work. Because Europe doesn't have such a capacity. And Russia would not agree.”

Language policy could also emerge as a point of contention that Russia deems important.

Ukraine may have to make concessions in case of a settlement. A 2019 Ukrainian law, passed at the end of former President Petro Poroshenko’s term, made Ukrainian the exclusive language of government services.

It was a move that Moscow called discriminatory against Russian speakers. Ukrainian is the main language in western Ukraine, while Russian is predominant in much of the east. A large proportion of the population speaks both languages fluently.

With Russian widely spoken in eastern Ukraine, this could become a bargaining chip in negotiations.

Both Kiev and Moscow are negotiating from positions of weakness, Ignatov said. Ukraine because of its losses on the battlefield and Russia because of ambitious demands that don’t match their battlefield victories, he added.

Whatever deal the US brokers, it is increasingly clear that Trump will not secure the quick peace he once touted. “To invest in this strategy,” Ignatov said, “you need to prepare for a long battle.”