One of the most pressing foreign policy challenges for the incoming U.S. administration is whether to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion or, as President-elect Donald Trump has suggested, pressure both sides to come to the negotiating table.
The war, now nearly three years in, has reached a critical point. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives, while Russian casualties have soared to an estimated 700,000, according to U.S. officials . Despite continued Western support, Ukraine has seen some wavering in aid from the U.S. and NATO, while Russia, severely depleted of modern armor, is deploying tanks that haven’t been used since the 1970s.
As Trump prepares to take the oath of office next week, here are three things to know about the situation in Ukraine:
Ukraine’s battlefield moves may be about leverage for future negotiations
Many experts have speculated that Ukraine’s August 2024 attack on Russia’s Kursk region was meant to capture territory that could later be used as a bargaining chip in potential truce talks.
Speaking at the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany, last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Kursk operation one of the greatest victories since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He said Russia was forced to divert 60,000 troops there, including soldiers sent from North Korea.
“Many of Russia’s threats have turned out to be bluffs, especially after Ukrainians entered Kursk,” he said. “And I am confident that even more of their claims will prove to be bluffs if we all work even harder to force Russia into peace.”
Zelenskyy foresaw that the incoming U.S. president, regardless of party, would likely signal a reduced commitment to Ukraine, given the shifting political landscape in the U.S., says Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a visiting professor of war studies at King’s College London.
“Zelenskyy saw that Jan. 20, 2025, was going to be an important date,” Willasey-Wilsey says. The Kursk operation “was quite deliberate ... trying to take some territory which could lead to bargaining,” he says.
At the same time, Ukraine is focused on causing as much attrition as possible among Russian forces, according to Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). By making it harder for Russia to maintain its war effort, Kyiv aims to demonstrate to foreign donors — whether in Europe or in the U.S. — that it remains committed to the fight and can continue to defend its sovereignty. “Success on the battlefield has been key to securing continued military and financial support,” Jones says.
But control of the conflict is entirely in Russian hands, says Colin Cleary, a former U.S. foreign service officer specializing in Central and Eastern Europe. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin could stop the war at any moment. ... He’s the aggressor, and Ukraine is the victim,” he says. “Ukraine can’t stop the war. ... They’re being attacked.”
Peace is unlikely, but a ceasefire is possible
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in one day. But on Fox News recently, Trump’s chosen special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, extended that timeline, saying that the conflict had a “solvable solution in the near term” and that his personal goal was to resolve it within 100 days.
But given Trump’s expressed admiration for Putin and fraught relationship with Zelenskyy, Ukraine has reason to be wary of U.S.-led efforts to wind down the conflict, says Willasey-Wilsey.
“You could easily see Putin saying, 'Donald, I prefer to deal with you directly,'” he says. As a result, it’s clear that Zelenskyy is “extremely anxious” about the prospect of negotiations, Willasey-Wilsey says.
A formal peace agreement in the near future is “highly unlikely,” says Jones of CSIS. If the Trump administration takes on the role of mediator, it may favor Putin, who could attempt to bypass European participation in negotiations.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul told NPR recently that he believes “out of tragedy, not out of any enthusiasm,” that Zelenskyy is being forced into a “realistic assessment of the situation on the battlefield.”
McFaul, who served during the Obama administration, says Zelenskyy has hinted that he’s willing to accept continued Russian occupation of some Ukrainian territory — at least in the near term.
In exchange, says Cleary, who is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University, Zelenskyy would need security guarantees— “not necessarily NATO membership, but some sort of interposition force through European allies that would be there as a deterrent.”
Ukraine strongly desires NATO membership, but the issue is a red line for Putin. Any suggestion that Ukraine would become a formal member of the alliance is likely to be a nonstarter for the Russian leader.
Ukraine’s outgoing envoy to NATO, Nataliia Galibarenko, told NPR that she often hears other diplomats suggesting alternatives that could protect Ukraine without NATO membership. “I always ask them, 'Why should [there] be something alternative invented specifically by or for Ukraine?” she said, adding that for these diplomats, “it’s very difficult to respond.”
However, Oleksandr Danylyuk, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a former head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, is skeptical that Russia will come to the table anytime soon. “For negotiations, you need to have both sides ... interested,” he says, adding, “It’s absolutely clear that Russia is not interested in any ceasefire.”
A truce may just be a play for time
Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s backing of proxies and separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region were essentially opening acts for its larger-scale invasion three years ago.
Jones draws parallels to what happened in Chechnya in the 1990s, when separatist rebels in the North Caucasus region fought Moscow over independence. The First Chechen War ended with a ceasefire in 1996, but the Second Chechen War broke out three years later. The same thing, he says, could happen again.
Zelenskyy, he says “should [have] every expectation [that] the Russians are going to use any pause to get their military back in order and potentially to fight at some point down the line.”
“Even if there’s some sort of deal in 2025 ... Zelenskyy has to think about deterring any kind of Russian invasion or reigniting the fighting,” Jones says.
The Russians want to see Zelenskyy replaced by someone more amenable to Moscow, while the Ukrainians need breathing room to bolster their defenses against another attack, he says.
“These will be very difficult negotiations because the two sides, Moscow and Kyiv, are very far apart,” he says.
But the fact that Ukraine is still standing after three years of war with a much bigger adversary, which had planned on a speedy and decisive victory, gives a moral advantage to Ukraine, says Cleary.
Ukraine “has achieved quite a lot of success,” he says. “They’re imposing enormous costs on Russian forces.”
“Who would have thought three years ago ... that Ukraine would still be holding?”
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