The Deadline for D. Trump’s Ultimatum on Russia is Approaching. Possible Options for Further Developments
Russia’s war against Ukraine is approaching a certain turning point that will determine its further course. Under pressure from the United States, Putin may agree to a ceasefire or refuse it and continue the war as long as the Russian economy allows. However, a ceasefire will not mean the end of the war. Russia will continue to do its best to ensure that Ukraine agrees to its demands for peace.
As the deadline for D. Trump’s ultimatum to end Russia’s war against Ukraine approaches, the question arises: what happens next? There are already many estimates and forecasts that give one or another answer to this question. However, as always, they are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory. Therefore, in order to understand the situation more or less clearly, we should, so to speak, bring them to a common denominator. In fact, there are only two main options for the development of events, namely – Putin either agrees to a truce, which obviously is meant by the ultimatum, or continues hostilities against Ukraine. However, each of them has several sub-options, which mostly complicate the general picture. So, let’s take a closer look at them.
Option One – Moscow agrees to a ceasefire, at least temporarily, with a possible extension of the truce until a peace treaty is concluded. In this case, there may be two ways the situation could develop, namely:
– Putin chooses a responsible position that would allow him to reach certain compromises based on mutual concessions. This would also make it possible to end hostilities and conclude a peace treaty that would fix a new border between the two countries along the front line. Ukraine would refuse to join NATO, but would not recognize the occupied territories as belonging to Russia. For its part, Russia would remove from the treaty its demands for Ukraine’s disarmament and political changes. It is possible that Russia could return some of the occupied territories to Ukraine. Under such conditions, the USA and the EU would refuse to impose new sanctions against Russia and its partners and could ease the existing ones;
– the president of the RF only imitates readiness for a constructive dialogue in order to avoid new sanctions from the USA and the EU. However, in reality, Moscow would continue to delay the negotiations, starting with the issue of agreeing on the terms of the truce and ending with the problem of defining the principles of the peace agreement. As before, the Kremlin’s approach would be aimed at seizing as much territory as possible and forcing Ukraine to accept Russia’s, but in fact his personal, terms of peace.
As a result, even if Russia formally agreed to a ceasefire, its troops would continue fighting at the front, albeit with less intensity. And the prospects for signing a peace treaty would remain uncertain until Moscow completely loses the ability to wage war for economic reasons. If D. Trump realizes this, he will increase pressure on Russia, including the announcement of new ultimatums in the interests of forcing it to peace.
Option Two – Moscow rejects D. Trump’s ultimatum and continues the war against Ukraine in its current form. In such a situation, further developments would depend on D. Trump’s decisions and actions and Putin and his partners’ (especially India and China’s) reaction to them. In this regard, there may be three main scenarios, including:
– D. Trump takes a tough stance and enacts all of the sanctions envisaged by the bill of US Senator L. Graham, even without its official adoption by the US Congress. At the same time, he may decide to significantly increase the volume of arms supplies to Ukraine, including missiles with a longer range than those already being delivered to us.
According to World Bank experts, if India and China stop buying oil from Russia, as required by the sanctions, Russia will lose about 30 % of its budget revenues. And if only India refuses to import Russian oil, the RF will lose 15-20 %. In any case, this would be a powerful blow to the Russian economy, and the consequences would be felt in two to three months.
A separate effect would come from handing over additional weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which would allow them to significantly strengthen their defense, intensify counteroffensive actions, and increase the intensity of strikes on Russia’s logistics routes and critical infrastructure. This would create critical problems for Moscow, forcing it to reduce its activity at the front and pushing it to agree to a truce.
– the US President limits himself to only partial application of the above-mentioned sanctions without strict control over their implementation. Arms supplies to Ukraine would be equally limited.
The half-heartedness of D. Trump’s decisions would also affect the actions of India and China. India would reduce oil imports from Russia, while China would ignore the sanctions altogether. The Ukrainian Armed Forces would have more opportunities to act against Russia, but not enough to radically change the situation on the front. Russia would face certain economic losses and a complication of the situation at the front. However, this could only force it to reduce the intensity of its offensive. However, the overall deterioration of the Russian economy, which is already happening even without new sanctions from the USA and the EU, would push Moscow to some form of truce.
Washington would begin to delay the imposition of new sanctions and would announce new deadlines for Moscow. D. Trump’s sticking to this strategy would finally undermine the world’s trust in him and the United States. This would apply to Russia itself and other totalitarian countries, as well as to America’s partners. Therefore, Russia would again not agree to end the war against Ukraine until the Russian economy loses the ability to support it due to existing problems.
Given this analysis, the current situation will likely develop in a middle ground between Putin’s actual rejection of the ceasefire and his formal agreement to negotiate the terms of the ceasefire. That is, Moscow will not change its position. Only the forms of its disguise may change.
For example, Moscow may declare its agreement to a ceasefire as a “gesture of goodwill”. And it may do so in the near future. In particular, following US President’s Special Envoy S. Whitkoff’s visit to Russia on August 6-7, 2017.
In this way, Putin would demonstrate to D. Trump that he allegedly listens to his demands. By the way, according to the US President, the Russian side itself invited S. Whitkoff to visit Moscow to meet with Putin. This means that Moscow is really concerned about D. Trump’s ultimatum. Especially after his harsh reaction to Medvedev’s nuclear threats, namely, the order to the US Navy to bring nuclear submarines to combat duty areas (in fact, this is done somewhat differently, but does not change the essence of the matter).
Thus, D. Trump has shown that it is really not worth joking with him. And Putin has already reacted to this and agreed to a meeting with Ukrainian President V. Zelenskyy, subject to technical preparations. As you know, he previously demanded that all problematic issues be agreed upon in advance.
However, there is a high probability that what has already happened during the short ceasefires announced since the beginning of this year could happen again. As mentioned above, Russian troops may slightly reduce the intensity of their actions, but they will not stop shelling Ukrainian positions and attacking them. At the same time, as before, they will use the lull to prepare new assaults by amassing personnel and supplies on the front lines.
Against this background, Russia’s leadership and its representatives will drag out negotiations, putting forward various and unacceptable demands for Ukraine, and artificially complicate the consideration of all issues. The vast majority of them are already very complex. First and foremost, this concerns the disengagement of the parties’ troops and control over the ceasefire.
Given the above, even such a conditional truce is likely to be disrupted, as happened with those announced under the Minsk agreements. As a result, the situation will return to its current state. However, even this scenario can be considered optimistic. Moscow may refuse to make any concessions at all, continuing to insist on its ultimatum demands. And it would do so as long as its economy allows.
In the scenario under consideration, the topic of negotiations on a peace agreement is deliberately not raised. It is too early to talk about this. However, given the character traits of both D. Trump and Putin, anything can happen, from a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia right now to a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.
Thus, the situation around Russia’s war against Ukraine is approaching a culmination. In a few days, it will become clear whether it will continue for some time, including indefinitely, or at least a phantom truce will come. However, even in the best case, this would not mean a complete end to the war.
Yurii Mykhailenko,
Institute of Global Politics
(Image generated by neural network)
