Challenges in reaching a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine

Seven weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, the Russian army is gaining ground every day in eastern Ukraine and recovering lost ground in the Russian oblast of Kursk.

The Kremlin’s number one objective in the current war with Ukraine is Russia’s security and therefore its existence as a state.

To achieve this objective, Russia will demand at the negotiating table the immediate departure of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from power in Ukraine to facilitate the arrival of someone who does not want Ukraine to join NATO due to the global instability that would generate. Ukraine’s non-accession to NATO is a point that is not negotiable for Russia.

There are “towns” that are too small for two “gunmen” of the caliber of Russia and NATO and for geopolitical and military reasons, they can never be neighbors. It is understandable that Russia wants to maintain its territorial distance from NATO and in that same sense, NATO should also want it (after what was observed a couple of weeks ago in the night skies of the city Dnipro in Ukraine) if it really seeks to avoid a nuclear escalation at all costs.

For that, the future leader of Ukraine should renounce Ukraine being a permanent member of NATO, or NATO should definitely reject Ukraine for reasons of regional and global security.

Russia’s objective (as the Kremlin has expressed it multiple times) is not to seize Ukraine to steal its resources, it is that politically speaking, Ukraine has to be a perfectly neutral country, something that could be difficult to achieve. The next Ukrainian president will not want to feel like the “puppet” of one side or the other, but he must fully adhere to what was written and signed by both parties. Therefore, finding the pieces in a transitional government to replace President Zelenskyy and his entire governmental structure will not be an easy task in which both sides will be completely satisfied in the end.

That would be President Donald Trump’s first major challenge once in the White House, since President Zelenskyy would have to resign in order to avoid more bloodshed, or something even worse for regional and global security. For that to happen there are no guarantees unless some kind of immunity is offered to the Ukrainian president and his government cabinet, something with which the Kremlin will have to agree.

The second major challenge would be Ukraine’s giving up the territories won by Russia in the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. The 4 oblasts together form an important land bridge for Russia to the Crimean Peninsula and thus to the Black Sea and its maritime defense.

In addition to this, coal, mining and industry in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, agriculture and the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, and the hydroelectric resources of the Kherson Oblast as well as its agriculture, represent important incentives for Russia to keep these territories and a tremendous loss for Ukraine, which would also lose more of its cost by losing what it had in the Sea of Azov before the war.

If the Russian advance continues in the coming weeks, the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, an important hub for road and rail communications, and the city of Odessa, Ukraine’s main commercial port on the Black Sea, could fall under Russian control if there is an unstoppable advance. In the case of Odessa, Ukraine would completely lose its Black Sea coast, which would be a devastating blow to its battered economy.

A Ukraine without sufficient resources for its support could be a breeding ground for the emergence of insurgent groups seeking the liberation of the territories lost during the war or for future coups that will once again increase tensions in the region.

The takeover of Odessa by the Russian army would bring its troops closer to 150 km from the border with Romania, a member of NATO, something that Russia has insisted, it does not want. In that sense, Odessa should not be a priority objective for Russia if what it truly seeks is security and a buffer zone for its southwestern border.

The third major challenge for the different actors would be the control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, currently under Russian control. This nuclear power plant is the largest in all of Europe with 6 nuclear reactors and generates 20% of Ukraine’s electrical energy, needed to heat about 4 million Ukrainian homes every winter.

In order for the Ukrainian economy not to collapse, this nuclear power plant should come under the control of a Ukrainian transitional government even though Russia retains most of the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast and the energy produced in that nuclear plant remains primarily for Ukrainians. It is worth mentioning that a battle for control of this nuclear power plant could generate a nuclear disaster even worse than Chernobyl that would affect both Ukraine and Russia, including the Ukrainian territories controlled by the Russian army.

The fourth challenge for a successful negotiation between Russia and Ukraine would be to guarantee the food security of Ukrainians by Russia and that the trade routes for basic grains already established in those oblasts are maintained so that they do not affect Ukraine or other countries in the world such as Egypt, Algeria, Morocco or Pakistan, which depend on Ukrainian agricultural production to feed their inhabitants. Russia’s non-hoarding of Ukrainian staple grains would also be a sub-point to be discussed at the negotiating table.

The fifth major challenge would be the recovery of the territory lost in the Russian oblast of Kursk by Russia. If there is a peace agreement in the coming days or weeks, this territory would represent an important exchange currency that Ukraine could use. If it loses that territory in combat in the coming weeks, Ukraine will lose an important asset in negotiating with Russia.

However, several weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, anything can happen if a ceasefire is not achieved by January 20, 2025, and if Russia continues to move forward, the conditions for negotiating a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine could change dramatically to the detriment of Ukraine.