No settlement with Ukraine unless Washington talks to Moscow

Certainly, the US position makes sense if the war is viewed, as it is in Kiev and much of the West, as an unprovoked act of Russian imperial aggression against Ukraine, driven by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s delusion that Ukraine is part of Russia. heritage. The belligerents are then Russia and Ukraine, even though the West has been instrumental in supporting Ukraine in the struggle.

Two countries will logically decide when the war ends. That Moscow and Kiev sought to being set in the early weeks of the war only reinforces this view.

The reality is quite different

From Russia’s point of view, the war is only one aspect, currently considered the most acute, of a wider conflict between Russia and the Westled by the United States. Russia is fighting not only because Putin considers Ukraine to be historically Russian, but also because the Kremlin is determined to overhaul the post-Cold War accord, which it believes was imposed on Russia at a time of debilitating strategic weakness.

The settlement drove Russia to the fringes of Europe.

The NATO expansion and the European Union deprived Russia of the Eastern European buffer zone it had long considered essential to its security. Russia also lost the central role in European affairs that it had played for more than three centuries and defined it as a great power. Putin and much of the Russian elite reinterpreted US actions in the early post-Cold War decades as designed not to build a partnership with Russia, as US leaders had declared, but rather to eliminate Russia as a major competitor power.

This goal posed an existential threat to Russia, in the view of its leaders. Russia’s great power status is at the heart of its national identity. That Putin wrote in a manifesto released on the eve of his ascension to the presidency a quarter of a century ago, “Russia has been and will remain a great power. This is due to the inherent characteristics of its geopolitical, economic and cultural existence. They determined the mentality of Russians and state policy throughout Russian history. They can only do so now.”

Or, like Dmitri Medvedev said it more clearly articulated when he was president: “Russia can exist as a powerful state, as a global player, or it will not exist at all.

Tellingly, draft treaties on security guarantees with nato and the United States, which the Kremlin released two months before a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mentioned Ukraine only briefly.
Russia’s key demands were aimed at softening NATO: The alliance would stop expanding, agree not to deploy offensive weapons capable of striking Russian territory, and withdraw its infrastructure back to the 1997 lineswhen the NATO-Russian Founding Act was signed and before the first round of post-Cold War expansion took place.

For Russia, the war with Ukraine thus refers to the European security structure and its status as a great power. Even if the war were miraculously resolved tomorrow, the larger problems of managing relations between Russia and the West in Europe would remain.

More precisely, the only way to a lasting solution to the Russian-Ukrainian war is through a broader agreement on a framework for the future of European security. The broader geopolitical settlement must precede the final resolution of the narrower issue of Russia’s relations with Ukraine.

Two key takeaways

First, critical negotiations will have to take place between the United States and Russia. Only those two countries can unilaterally change the security arrangements in Europe. No arrangement will take place without their consent.

Moreover, the need for frank discussions requires that no Europeans or Ukrainians be physically present, even on matters of central concern to them.

Moscow would welcome such talks. They would legitimize Russia as a great power. The Kremlin would be talking to the only country it believes is important in terms of European security.

The Kremlin is, of course, wrong in his belief that the two countries could negotiate a resolution to the war and a framework for European security over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians. The United States cannot completely impose its will on allies and partners like a puppeteer on his toys.

At most, as a leader of The transatlantic communityhas considerable leverage. Anything agreed between Moscow and Washington should be adjusted to take into account the interests and concerns of US allies and the Ukrainians. For this reason, Washington would be wise to remain in close consultation with its allies and Ukraine as it continues talks with Moscow.

Second, the proper way to think about resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war is to not consider various models and modalities of cease-fire between two belligerents, including monitoring missions and third-party guarantors.

The resolution will come by adapting the arms control measures and confidence-building messages agreed between the Soviet bloc and the West in the late stages of the Cold War and the early years after the Cold War, that Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). The parties to the agreements will themselves monitor their implementation through national technical means, joint commissions or other agreed procedures.

As during the Cold War, the goal would be to stabilize the NATO-Russia border, which now stretches from the Barents Sea through the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. What ever ceasefire line passes through Ukraine would become part of that longer border, making the part of Ukraine west of the border effectively a security ward of the West.

In this light, the main task of the incoming Trump administration is not to force Ukraine and Russia to sit down at the negotiating table. Open a sustained and substantive dialogue with Russia on the full range of issues on the US-Russia agenda, which has been neglected in recent years. Ukraine will be on this agenda, as will European security.

However, the two countries will also want to talk about strategic stability, such as the Middle East, the Arctic, Northeast Asia and energy markets, among others. This will not mark a reset in relationships. No one should be under the illusion that a strategic partnership is possible. But it will mark an effort to transform the current relationship of bitter contradiction, which is fraught with the risk of direct military confrontation, into a relationship of competitive coexistence or constructive rivalry, starting with Europe.

This could lay the foundations for a stable security structure in Europe and a lasting resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Thomas Grahama distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he was the senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration.

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