Trump And Ukraine: What Russia Wants, What Trump Could Do
Date
11/7/2024 7:06:25 PM
(MENAFN- Asia Times)
Reports in growing numbers speculate or advocate on what the forthcoming trump administration will do domestically and what policy approach it will have globally. There have been a number of comments, some of them coming from administration wannabes , on what President-elect Trump should do about Ukraine.
Trump promised during the campaign that he would end the war in Ukraine pretty quickly once he took office. He hinted he would do this by engaging Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky. Beyond that we have a guessing game.
The wannabes are throwing around contradictory ideas. Some want a ceasefire deal. Others talk about a cordon sanitaire and having it enforced by the Europeans. Still others concede a need to“award” Russia and let it hold onto captured territory. And some say that part of a deal might be to stop Ukrainian NATO membership for a period of time, perhaps 20 years.
No one seems to have any idea what the Russians want, or so it seems.
Trump is a savvy negotiator. He will want to know what his opponent wants and he will try and find ways either to accommodate or to leverage him.
Russia has been fairly clear about some of what it wants, but not everything.
What follows is my understanding of Russia's objectives in Ukraine. Explaining them does not mean that I agree with them. Nor does it mean that all are of equal importance to Russia's leaders.
Russia will insist on keeping the territories that it has previously annexed. Various solutions – a ceasefire, a buffer zone or some kind of territorial freeze – will not satisfy Russia's leaders. Russia will demand formal recognition of its earlier annexations and seek to establish firm borders for these territories. This means that any negotiation about the annexed territories is mostly a matter of maps.
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