A peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in which Ukraine agrees to cede territory currently occupied by Russia permanently to the Russian Federation is an impossibility, as is a peace agreement in which Ukraine agrees permanently to remain neutral in Russia’s battles with the West and to abandon pretensions to join NATO or the European Union. The Ukrainian people would never have it, and the Ukrainian President could never sell his people down the river in such a way. However an end to the fighting - an armistice - is now inevitable and it seems to be what US President-elect Donald Trump is likely to press upon both parties once he is in office. Indeed he is already preparing for it, apparently having spoken to the Presidents of both Ukraine and Russia about what such a prospect. So what would such an armistice look like? There are precedents for armistices of this kind - the most obvious example that jumps out is Korea in 1953. Such an agreement would have several elements.
The first - and this must be agreed before anything else - is an armistice line. This is a front line drawn on a map that the parties agree not to shoot over, in effect. The armistice line will reflect the realities of the situation on the ground - in other words, the existing front line which despite alarmist newspaper reports to the contrary has not significantly moved since November 2022 when the Russians evacuated Kherson due to their inability to extend their supply lines that far west through the terrain they had seized south of the Dnipro River which for the most part is difficult-going marshland and national park territory with few roads and railways capable of supporting military supply lines. The recent Russian offensive, which must surely be about to end as the temperatures start to plummet and practical infantry fighting becomes impossible (soldiers’ resources on both sides are diverted to staying warm and alive during the sub-zero winter season), has resulted in advances as meagre as 200 yards a day as the Ukrainians are for the most part well dug in and the Russians have been seeking to advance through forests, fields and other open terrain. Progress of this kind is always extremely slow and strategically it has little value as the territory being gradually captured has little value for the Russians yet is being taken at an extremely high price in terms of lives and armour. So the front line - which will become the armistice line - has effectively been settled. Vladimir Putin’s asserted claims of wanting to take the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro are mere dreams; it would take many years, at the current pace, to come anywhere near taking those metropolises.
To secure the cessation of fighting, peacekeepers from a superior force must be placed between the two warring armies - every armistice has included a provision for this and the armistice ending the second Russian invasion of Ukraine will be no different. There must be an agreement for the peacekeepers, who will be a mixture of NATO troops and other countries’ armies that are perceived as more neutral - to enter the contested front line area which is heavily mined and blocked with tank traps and the like - and to occupy robust positions along the front line. The NATO troops must substantially include an American contingent and other NATO allies, because that is the only effective deterrent: the Russians will not fire against an American-led NATO contingent. Vladimir Putin will no doubt argue for an entirely neutral UN-backed regime of peacekeepers but Donald Trump knows that this will be no good and even if the arrangement is backed by a UN resolution the Americans must lead it, at least initially, and Trump knows that. Tens of thousands of American troops have occupied the DMZ (demilitarised zone) between the two Koreas for many decades and this may prove to be no different. Otherwise Russia will just regroup, restock and try again when they next perceive American and European weakness.
Then the parties must agree to withdraw all troops and armour from the demilitarised zones, and this typically takes places in stages: first each side will withdraw 10 kilometres, say, from its current positions, and then once there is peace they will withdrawn a further 10 kilometres each so that there is a 40 kilometre distance between the sides. This is sufficient to prevent shelling and mortar attacks, so it is a durable zone of demilitarisation. During this time the US and NATO-led peacekeepers must establish solid control of the demilitarised zone and acquaint themselves with the territory and landscape, with the assistance of their Ukrainian allies. None of this takes place under the umbrella of a peace treaty; it must be imposed. This way the fighting and the dying will come to an end. The right time for peacekeeping troops to enter Ukraine and occupy such a zone is at the end of February 2025, the time when the weather thawed sufficiently in 2022 for Russia to commence her invasion. But a clear plan for troop withdrawal and insertion of the intervening force between the two sides must be drawn up by military experts and inked by legal officials.
Then there must be provisions for a variety of other measures that are necessary to regularise the position. One such agreement is for exchange of prisoners of war, and that will require some negotiations as the Russians hold more prisoners of war than the Ukrainians do. That might be negotiated using Ukraine’s occupation of Kursk oblast, for example, which Ukraine knows she will have to give up in the course of an armistice, negotiated directly or via shuttle diplomacy or imposed: whatever the case may be (and depending on how stubborn the respective sides are). Provisions for places where civilians can cross the border between the two sides should be put in place, but with adequate security checks and assessments to prevent infiltration by either side of special forces, saboteurs or state security officials determined to cause havoc or restart small proxy conflicts on either side of the zone of separation. Nevertheless the ability of families to be reunited is an important feature of an armistice agreement. It did not happen in Korea and it led to countless suffering over decades of the civilian populations of the two Koreas.
Each side must agree to limitations of the number of troops that remain on the front line even at the rear positions to which they have withdrawn; there are almost two million soldiers on both sides of the front line at the current juncture and this is not a sustainable proposition in the long term for either side. Both countries need to get their men back into civilian life, which leads to the third element of a sustainable armistice: disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. In Ukraine this is a process that can be managed by western experts, and it is difficult indeed with so many injuries, men who have been fighting for a decade since the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and have lost many of the skills to be reintegrated into civilian society. On the Russian side it is impossible to control this process which will undoubtedly be handled in far more shoddy a fashion; but both sides must do it.
Then there is the process of mine clearance and other normalisation of the demilitarised zone. Towns and settlements along what will become the demilitarised zone have been comprehensively destroyed and they must be rebuilt to acquire confidence building in the civilian population that the war really has come to an end. This will cost money, but barely a fraction of the cost of continuing to finance the Ukrainian war on the part of the West and not for an indefinite period. Whether Russia rebuilds front line settlements on her side of the armistice line is a matter for her but she may well do little in the way of reconstruction whereas the West must help the Ukrainians rebuild cities such as Kherson, Kostyantynivka, Sloviansk and Kupiansk that now either stand as ruined shells, or have sustained significant damage and are barely habitable.
In the medium term the goal will be, as with the two Koreas, to show that free Ukraine progresses economically and democratically far faster than occupied Ukraine, and that will be the way to show that Ukraine has won the war. The prospects of further Russian attempts to take Ukrainian territory can only be discounted by an indefinite NATO-led peacekeeping presence in free Ukraine and this will inevitably entail dramatic transformation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from a quasi-militia organisation albeit over enormous size to a modern, well-trained and equipped army ready in the future to outgun the Russians in any further Russian attempt to advance. Hence Ukraine must join NATO as its largest member state in terms of troop numbers and must radically reform. The goal is that in a decade, free Ukraine is a modern democratic European state having altogether forgotten the malign influence of the Russian orbit.
Then, when the Russian government at some point collapses in revolution or chaos, as it is occasionally wont to do (albeit always as a result of some internal foment), there may be an opportunity for Ukraine to be reunited as one. For now the best possible outcome is that the war is frozen. It is best for the Ukrainians, who are tired of seeing their men dying and want their country to return to normal. After all, 15% of Ukraine (including Crimea) has been occupied for over ten years and to expect its immediate return to free Ukraine is sadly not a realistic immediate goal. Instead Ukraine must show that she can prevail over Russia in softer terms, creating a better quality of life for her people than Russia ever can, and that is how the war will be won in the longer term. The goal is to stop the killing and to continue the struggle with Russia in other ways.
That will entail keeping the western sanctions against Russia fully in force; fighting against her attempts to derail global economic and political institutions and seize territory in Africa; and maybe even tightening those sanctions. This suits the United States because otherwise Russia has the capacity to develop into a global menace interfering with the United States’ other geopolitical and strategic goals; a policy of containment must be applied to Russia until she sorts herself out (if at all but we can hope). It also suits China, that does not want to see a continuing development of Russian relations with Iran and North Korea. These matters weaken China in her own desire to prevail as a global power and at the same time keep the peace with the United States which is still far superior militarily. Such an outcome suits the Europeans, who extend their security umbrella with NATO further east (precisely what the Russians did not want as they entered this conflict) and become ever more cognisant of their own need to increase their obligations towards the NATO alliance to keep the Americans on board. And it suits the Russians, because this ongoing war is becoming such a burden upon their economy and manpower that they have had to hire North Korean soldiers to fight the war for them and they have become dependent upon Iranian exports.
Finally, there is the question of what to do about the strategic asset of Enerhodar, also known as Zaporizhzhia power station, which was the biggest set of water cooled nuclear reactors in Europe but the Russians seem incapable of keeping it going. IAEA inspectors need to undertake a renewed assessment of the conditions at the facility once the firing has stopped, and there may be a case for the site being internationalised, with a power sharing agreement - if there is anything left of it that can be restored into a functioning nuclear facility. Right now it is effectively a Russian military base and that is not good for any of the sides. The facility is solidly in Russian-controlled territory so this will require some movement by the Russians and shuttle negotiation of a bilateral or multilateral kind may be necessary to achieve a result. But it should not be forgotten.
If the Trump administration is serious about bringing peace to Ukraine, these are the essential steps that will have to be followed, planned and documented, in a combination of military and legal expertise. It is a considerable task. President-elect Trump has said he can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours but it will take a little longer than that. It will be a massive effort, although the essential elements are in place.