Buffer zone and peacekeepers from Western nations? What could Ukraine's peace plan look like?
In Moscow, Kyiv, Brussels, Washington, and other capitals, diplomats, elected leaders, and military figures are secretly preparing for what is likely to become a full-scale push aimed at finding a resolution to the largest land war in Europe since World War II.
Currently, Russia unequivocally dominates the battlefield initiative. Its army is grinding down Ukrainian forces along an 1100-kilometer front line. Moscow is destroying Ukraine's energy infrastructure in an effort to deprive and freeze the weary population.
In the negotiating rooms in the West, the mood has decisively shifted towards an impetus for resolving the conflict, in which over a million people have died or been injured on both sides in the past 34 months (and that number continues to rise). The momentum became more pronounced after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, who promised even before his inauguration in January to find a way to end hostilities “within 24 hours.”
“There’s a lot of discussion, a lot of noise about how peace talks are inevitable,” says Rosa Balfour, director of the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels. “We don’t actually have a plan. It seems that no one has a plan right now. And of course, the situation on the ground is not favorable for Ukraine, so this is a very difficult moment.”
Here’s what is known about the discussed ideas, initiatives for a ceasefire, and more.
PEACEKEEPING FORCES?
This week, European and American officials actively discussed whether Western troops could be sent to Ukraine as peacekeepers once shelling ceases and a ceasefire or truce is achieved.
Reportedly, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested deploying 40,000 troops in Ukraine, and on December 12, he traveled to Warsaw to discuss this idea with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
At a press conference following the meeting, Tusk informed reporters that Poland does not intend to send troops to Ukraine. He added that Warsaw would not be compelled to do so.
The proposal for Western peacekeepers was also mentioned five days earlier in Paris, when Macron held a meeting with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, Trump, who has repeatedly stated that Europeans should play a more active role in supporting and protecting Ukraine, expressed his desire for European troops on the ground to monitor the ceasefire.
Trump does not want American troops involved in this, reports the Wall Street Journal, although he supports some U.S. backing for the efforts.
The Ukrainian leadership, which published a 10-point "Victory Plan" in September, supports the idea of having Western peacekeepers present. However, Moscow has little incentive to agree, says Alexander Khara, a former Ukrainian diplomat.
“Of course, it’s good that they are talking about it, but there is no basis for starting peace negotiations,” Khara, an expert at the Kyiv Defense Strategies Center, believes.
“Since Russia believes it can still break Ukraine and that the West has wavered, and Trump is going to pressure Kyiv to stop arms supplies and other assistance, why sit down at the negotiating table when it can seize more Ukrainian territory, kill more Ukrainians, and essentially... show that there is no point [in arguing] with Russia?” said Khara.
NATO ALLIES
One of the Kremlin’s initial grievances justifying the invasion in February 2022 remains one of Kyiv's key desires—membership in NATO.
On December 9, Zelensky reiterated his claim that joining NATO is of utmost importance.
However, many NATO members are cool to the idea of Ukraine's membership. At the 2008 summit, U.S. and European leaders crafted a weak compromise that promised possible membership but did not create a roadmap de facto. Some officials and experts argue that this was a mistake that led to Russia's invasion in 2022.
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, NATO has expanded with Sweden and Finland joining the alliance. But admitting Ukraine now would mean accepting a war-torn country partially occupied by another state, which is problematic for many members of the bloc.
The United States is also lukewarm to this idea. Reportedly, in Paris this week, Trump told Macron and Zelensky that he does not support Kyiv's application for membership, notes WSJ.
Delaying membership is a “capitulation to Russia’s demands, and it would be a major victory for Putin,” wrote retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan in his blog.
“It will confirm in the minds of Putin and similar authoritarian figures that Russian aggression against Ukraine worked, as Ukraine's non-entry into NATO was one of Putin's main demands before the war,” argues Ryan.
BUFFER ZONE?
Unless some unforeseen event occurs, Ukraine is almost certain to suffer territorial losses. Russia currently occupies about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, including nearly all of Donbas and the Crimean Peninsula.
Many observers consider creating some sort of neutral zone, similar to the demilitarized zone that has divided North and South Korea for decades, a reasonable model.
Putin proposed this idea in March after being re-elected.
“I do not rule out that... we will be forced at some point, when we deem it appropriate, to create some kind of ‘sanitary zone’ in the territories currently under the Kyiv regime,” he said.
The most challenging aspect for Ukraine is determining where this line will be drawn and what part of its economic base the country will lose. The Russian-occupied Donbas accounts for a significant portion of Ukraine's mining and heavy industry. According to some estimates, Russia has occupied about 8 million hectares of agricultural land.
In August, Ukraine took a bold step by invading Russian territory and seizing part of the Kursk region. Later, Zelensky stated that the goal was to create a buffer zone to push Russian missile systems further away from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.
However, since then, Russia has pushed Ukrainian troops back, reclaiming nearly half of the territory seized by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
In a buffer zone, monitoring and verification become more challenging: what exactly will be allowed for peacekeepers or each party to monitor the other. The explosive development of drone warfare could potentially complicate the situation.
CARROT AND STICK
The biggest question for future negotiations may be the behavior of the largest arms supplier to Ukraine—the United States and the incoming Trump administration.
Trump has criticized the Biden administration's arms supplies to Ukraine for years and suggested that Zelensky is engaging in fraud. He also stated that his skills as a businessman and developer would help achieve an agreement with Putin.
Trump proposed appointing retired Colonel K.T. Kellogg as a special envoy for Ukraine, who was an advisor to Vice President Mike Pence during Trump’s first term. In an article published before the November elections, co-authored