The Trump administration is pushing for a diplomatic resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war in the least diplomatic possible way. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance laid down an American peace proposal in stark take-it-or-leave-it terms. “We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians,” he said, “and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the proposals, which would involve deep concessions on issues ranging from future Ukrainian neutrality to accepting Russian annexation of Crimea. According to a report by The Associated Press, these proposals were initially presented last week in Paris as “just ideas” that could be changed. Now, they seem to have hardened into an ultimatum. When Zelenskyy balked, President Donald Trump lashed out on his social media platform, Truth Social, writing that the Ukrainian president “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.”
The Trump administration is pushing for a diplomatic resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war in the least diplomatic possible way.
Trump isn’t wrong to emphasize that it’s long past time for a negotiated settlement to end the war. Ukraine has far less diplomatic leverage now than it would have had a year ago — or two years ago — when its battlefield position was far better. Given that it’s likely the war will end at the bargaining table sooner or later and that any deal will involve painful concessions, there’s an obvious case for moving toward a settlement now rather than waiting until another 50,000 or 100,000 Ukrainian and Russian men have died at the front. But it’s difficult to overstate how unusual Trump’s approach has been.
It may be useful here to consider an analogy to the war in Gaza. The rough equivalent in the Middle East to how the U.S. is approaching diplomacy in eastern Europe would be if, in advance of any direct talks between the parties, Trump demanded that Israel diplomatically recognize the state of Palestine and immediately evacuate all of the settlements in the West Bank. Try to imagine that happening and then Trump and Vance telling Netanyahu that if he doesn’t immediately go along with the program, the U.S. will have to “walk away from this process.”
Whether or not you think this is what should happen, this “tale of two wars” is striking because it’s impossible to imagine Trump (or any other American president) approaching Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy in this way, even though Israel is the occupying power in the Palestinian territories and Ukraine is the victim of an invasion, fighting to keep its territories out of the hands of a foreign occupier. The double standard is galling. Even so, a utilitarian case could be made for the administration’s approach, if it were likely to work.
The war in Ukraine has led to an immense amount of human suffering in the region, and at times it has seemed terrifyingly close to spiraling into a wider war. According to a report in The New York Times, at one point in 2022, the CIA estimated that there was a 50% chance of Russia’s using nuclear weapons if Ukraine looked like it was on the verge of retaking Crimea. Later the same year, a missile of unknown origin hit Poland, where it killed two people. At the time, Ukrainian sources blamed Russia.
Poland is a member of NATO, and a Russian missile’s hitting its territory would have raised grave questions about Article 5 of NATO’s charter, which commits the alliance’s members to go to war when any member is attacked. It turned out to have been a stray air-defense missile fired from Ukraine, but the incident underscored the always-present danger of the regional conflict’s becoming global. And there’s an obvious case for diplomacy even without this danger.
Trump and Vance have often acted as if Zelenskyy were an employee who would fall into line as soon as he were given his new orders. Even relatively conservative estimates show hundreds of thousands of deaths so far, and the use of cluster munitions makes it highly likely that Ukrainians will continue to be blown up by leftover ordnance for many years after the fighting is over. Disturbing videos that have gone viral on social media have shown Ukrainian men being conscripted for the front literally having to be bodily picked up and wrestled onto military buses. Similarly, many Russian men have fled to neighboring countries to avoid being fed into the meat grinder. If these people’s lives could be saved, Trump and Vance’s blunt approach could be justified. The problem is that, as much as I’d love to be wrong about this, there’s every reason to think it will backfire. Trump and Vance have often acted as if Zelenskyy were an employee who would fall into line as soon as he were given his new orders, not an independent actor who has to worry about his own local politics and who needs to be coaxed to the negotiating table with actual diplomacy if there’s any chance of making a deal. The predictable effect of all of this scolding and browbeating will be to increase his popularity in his own country as he’s seen standing up for the dignity of Ukraine against foreign bullying and even to harden Ukrainian public opinion against the concessions that are always involved when two countries make a peace deal after neither are in a position to decisively settle things in their favor on the battlefield. Good-faith mediation to bring about a diplomatic settlement is desperately needed. Whatever this is, it’s not that.
Ben Burgis
Ben Burgis is a political commentator and author. He has written articles for Jacobin and The Daily Beast. 
