Risk on both sides Could Trump help end the Ukraine war?

Nobody knows when the talks will happen, or in what city. It is unclear who might be sitting at the table, or what format the discussion will take. But at some point in the coming months, the incoming US administration will probably attempt to negotiate an end to Russia's war in Ukraine.

- Shaun Walker Kyiv Piotr Sauer

Donald Trump takes office in January and with his self-image as a great dealmaker boasted on the campaign trail that he could end the war in 24 hours. Last week Trump appointed the retired army general Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, tasked primarily with ending the war. Or as Trump put it in his online announcement, to "secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH".

As the US transition approaches, both Moscow and Kyiv are wary of the prospect of talks, playing down the idea publicly yet manoeuvring to be in the best possible position when Trump takes office. Ukraine, after finally receiving a long-requested green light, has begun firing western-supplied long-range missiles into Russia; Putin, in response, used a nuclear-capable ballistic missile to hit the city of Dnipro last month, and followed it up with escalatory threats.

An easy path to a peace deal is hard to discern. A common assumption in the west has been that freezing the line of conflict could be a prelude to talks, but neither side appears keen: Russia, because it is advancing on the battlefield; Ukraine, because it fears that without real security guarantees from the west freezing the lines would simply give Russia time to regroup before it launched a fresh assault.

"It would mean losing the war," said Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv. "Russia gets our territory, and then they will dominate at the negotiation table, with new demands... I don't really understand what these talks would be. Would it just be that we are told to fulfil Russia's ultimatums? How would that be in Ukraine's interest, after three years of resistance?"

Moscow, for now, is equally uninterested in freezing the lines, believing it can win more territory and then sue for peace when Ukraine has no choice but to accept even harsher terms.