How are the peace talks going?

In this video, I give a rather pessimistic status on the peace talks. Despite Trump's attempts at brokering a deal, almost no progress has been made.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

This week, there was another round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine about a peace deal, and unsurprisingly, it ended without visible progress. A deal was made about the exchange of prisoners of war, but it's quite normal that they do that as a kind of good faith gesture when they have negotiations.

What I want to do in this video is to give an update on the ongoing negotiations. It's difficult for most people to keep track of all the different messages, and when you follow the news, it can be very hard to get a clear idea of how close we actually are to peace. So let's talk about it.

The big picture is quite simple. Despite the fact that Donald Trump has now, for over a year, tried to broker a peace deal, there's been almost no movement. The positions of both Russia and Ukraine are almost unchanged. There have been small movements on both sides, but in the big picture, the two sides don't seem much closer to each other now than they were when Donald Trump came into office.

The way we can see that is that there is almost no movement when the Russians and the Ukrainians express their positions. They are saying the same things that they've been saying all along. They still express the same requirements for a peace settlement. And we're not seeing signs that, if we follow their messages, that they are particularly preparing the public or the military or the political elites for the necessity to make compromises on some of those demands that they are making.

The reason it's so confusing to follow the peace negotiations is that when the two sides talk about talks, not about their demands, but how they see the negotiations, then what they will be expressing that things are going great. They say that they have had great discussions and much progress has been made. There is no final deals yet, but the talks themselves are going well. This has been the message from the Russians, from the Ukrainians, and also from the Americans.

So, if you follow the talk about the talks, you might get the impression that there is a lot of progress and that we could be very close to a breakthrough in the negotiations. But if you follow the conversation about the kinds of concessions that either side is willing to make or that they expect the other side to make, it's pretty clear that there is almost no movement at all.

It's been said many times that the reason that they do that is because both Russia and Ukraine are eager to give the Americans the impression that they are very willing to engage in peace talks, but that the obstacle to peace is the other side. Because both sides want Donald Trump to get angry at the other side and to do something to punish them so that they will fall into line.

One interesting development over the last couple of months is that increasingly, the two sides are beginning to give the impression that a deal has actually already been made. So there is a nuance there. It's not just that they are willing to engage in talks, but a deal is actually almost made, and it only needs to be finalized.

We've seen that from the Ukrainians and the Americans who have been talking a lot about how they are 95% done with a peace deal. There's only one topic that's not entirely decided, where discussions are still ongoing, but that's the only one. And then they are very close. And that one topic is territory. Specifically, it's the territory of the Donbas region, where there is disagreement about where the future border should be. Should it be where the current frontline is? Or does Ukraine need to withdraw and cede some more territory to Russia?

And then in parallel to this, there has been another discussion about security guarantees. And that deal is also more or less finalized. It's ready to be signed. That's been the message from the Ukrainians. It just needs the Americans and the European countries in the so-called coalition of the willing to sign this paper. And then it's done.

So there's not actually one agreement anymore. There are two. It's two different agreements, but they are both almost done. They just need to be finalized and signed into action by the relevant parties.

From the Russian perspective, we've seen similar rhetoric being used, but in a different way. They refer to the understandings that were reached at the Anchorage Summit and how they should be the foundation for any future talks. The Anchorage Summit was the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska back in August. At the time, it was frankly not clear that they had reached any meaningful understandings about anything. In fact, the summit itself seemed quite a disappointment for Trump. He did not seem impressed with the results he was able to get with Putin. But now the Russians are talking about this meeting as if some kind of protocol was agreed upon between Trump and Putin and how that is the foundation for future talks.

So it's a fascinating situation where both sides keep referring to agreements that they've allegedly made with the United States in meetings where the other side was not present. And now the other side just has to accept that this is the established fact because it's already been agreed upon with the Americans.

It's hard to say exactly what has and has not been agreed upon with Americans. But it's interesting that things have moved from the two sides wanting to appear eager for negotiations and open to all the ideas that Trump might have to now increasingly, they seem to be trying to catch the Americans and to tie them down into positions that align with their own. Both sides are trying to spin the narrative so that instead of it being up to them to deliver something to these negotiations, now it's up to the Americans to uphold their part of agreements that were already made.

If we take the claims one by one, it's clear that they don't holp up. Let's first begin with the Russian claim that Trump and Putin reached some sort of agreement in Alaska. It's obviously a silly claim because Ukraine was not present at that meeting, and so many things have happened since then. The European countries have stepped up to support Ukraine and provided more financial aid so Ukraine can continue the fight, for example.

It's possible that Trump and Putin reached some kind of agreement about something back in August, but that would then have been the foundation for the 28-point plan that the Americans presented to Ukraine back in November. And this 28-point plan did not gain any traction at all. It was rejected, and it was clearly not a path forward. And therefore, when the Russians insist that discussions with Trump from six months ago need to be the foundation now, despite this already being tried and clearly being an unrealistic path forward, then basically that's the same as rejecting any path forward.

And on the Ukrainian side, the interesting claim is that there is not single agreement about peace anymore. Instead, it's now been split into two separate agreements. One is about peace with Russia, and the other is about security guarantees. And the latter is an agreement with the Western countries, and it doesn't really influence Russia at all.

On the one hand, if you have sympathy for Ukraine, you can understand this viewpoint that Russia should not have influence over Ukraine's future alliances or the kinds of security arrangements that Ukraine can make with Western countries. But at the same time, I also think it's rather silly to pretend that you can separate these two issues, because the question about security guarantees is one of the fundamental reasons why Russia is waging the war in Ukraine in the first place. Russia wants political control over all of Ukraine, and that means that Ukraine can't have security guarantees that prevent Russia from having that influence.

So Ukraine's claim that the only unfinished question is territory, is just not accurate. The Ukrainians have just taken all the other questions that are important to Russia and decided that Russia does not get to have influence on them. And that's how they get down to the claim that there is only one discussion point left. But of course, Russia is not going to accept that.

About the question of territory, I think there are many misunderstandings, and I want to address that. To suggest that this is merely a final issue that needs solving is a massive understatement. It's a huge issue with immense disagreement. And it's almost impossible to see how either side could compromise on their positions.

The thing to understand about territory in the Donbas region is that we're not just talking about territory or even the people who live there. We're also talking about military fortifications. What the Russians are demanding is for Ukraine to abandon their best and most fortified defensive positions, to hand them over to the Russians, let the Russians cross those fortifications without a fight, bring their entire army across, and then trust that the Russians will not continue to attack afterwards. It's just not going to happen.

The reality is that there is much talk about security guarantees for Ukraine right now, but those fortifications in the Donbas are Ukraine's best security guarantee. It will take the Russians half a million more casualties to get through those fortifications. And that is a much more reliable security guarantee than any promises that Donald Trump or the coalition of the willing might make to Ukraine.

So Ukraine is not going to compromise on this issue. They're not going to hand over their best defensive lines to the Russians without a fight because that would be suicide.

So overall, I think the negotiations are going very poorly. There is little reason for any kind of optimism about solutions to be found anytime soon. The two sides are trying in different creative ways to reframe their positions to give the impression of progress that is in their favor. But in reality, they haven't really moved at all.

So I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump's attempts at peace have been a failure so far. The things he's been doing have not substantially moved the conflict closer to an ending. And when you see the political spectacle on the news and there's talk about peace and peace talks again, be aware that this is not a productive process. There is no reason to be particularly optimistic about anything that's coming out of it, even though the representatives of all the different sides will all be saying that the talks are going great. This is part of the tactics of negotiations right now, and the reality is that the talks are not going great.

So unfortunately, I think we should be prepared for the fact that these talks are going to continue without any meaningful results. And in the meantime, the war will continue until one of the two sides becomes so weak that they have no alternative to give in to the demands of the other side.

Before I finish, I just want to make a quick announcement. My last video here on the channel was about Trump and Greenland. Since then, the threat of an American invasion of Greenland seems to have somewhat faded. I made a video about it and why it ended as it did. But I did not put it here on YouTube. I placed it on my website, www.logicowar.com. It's not behind a paywall. So if you want to see it, you can click on the link that I'm going to put in the video description.

And with that, I will end it here. If you found the video helpful or informative, then please give it a like. And also remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to get notifications when I upload new videos. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.