President-elect Donald Trump’s advisers now admit that the Ukraine war will take months or longer to resolve, dramatically reversing his biggest foreign policy promise – a peace deal on his first day in the White House. Advisers called these promises pre-election boasting and a lack of understanding of the complexity of the conflict and the time it will take to build a new administration, on Wednesday, the 15th of January, writes Reuters.
Trump’s incoming Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, told Fox News that his goal is to find a “solution” to the war within 100 days.
But even Kellogg’s timeframe is “too, too optimistic”, said former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who now works at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington.
“For this to succeed, Trump has to convince (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that his intransigence has a downside,” Herbst said.
Before winning the elections on the 5th of November, Trump repeatedly claimed that he would reach a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia on his first day in office. Since then, he has backtracked, now saying he will “resolve” the conflict without setting a timeframe and admitting that this could be more difficult than reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I think what’s actually going to be more difficult is the Russia-Ukraine situation,” Trump said when asked about Gaza at a press conference in December. “I think it’s more complicated.”
Russia has also expressed interest in talks with Trump but has rejected some of his advisers’ proposals as unrealistic.
The Kremlin has declined to comment and representatives of Trump’s incoming administration or the Ukrainian embassy in Washington have not yet commented on the Trump team’s updated timeline.
Russia has made significant gains on the battlefield in recent months. Although these gains have come at a huge cost in terms of troops and material, many analysts argue that Putin has reason to be slow to reach an agreement while he seeks to gain control over more of Ukraine.
Herbst pointed to comments by Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia earlier this month, who said that the peace plans proposed by Trump’s advisers were “nothing interesting”.
Although the exact contours of Trump’s peace plan are still under discussion, Trump’s team is considering a peace plan that would suspend Ukraine’s NATO membership and freeze the battle lines. Advisers also support providing security guarantees for Ukraine, such as a demilitarised zone monitored by European troops.
So far, the Trump team’s attempts to end the war have failed, underlining the extent to which promises from the campaign can clash with the reality of difficult diplomatic negotiations.
Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Kellogg, postponed a visit to Kyiv before the inauguration aimed at supporting efforts for a peace plan. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry suggested that this was due to US concerns about the violation of the Logan Act, which restricts the right of private individuals to negotiate with foreign governments.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to meet with (Putin) until the 20th, which I don’t like because people are being killed every day – many, many young people are being killed,” Trump said at a press conference last week.
Meanwhile, officials in the incoming Trump administration at the State Department, the National Security Council and other bodies are still figuring out who is in charge of various geopolitical issues, one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers told Reuters.