On Trump's arbitrary and totally unnecessary self-imposed deadline to ''solve'' the Ukraine war.
Trump’s new timeline to ‘‘solve’’ the Ukraine war and Putin’s willingness to negotiate with the U.S. “without any preconditions” are interrelated.
Trump's Ukraine peace envoy Keith Kellogg says he's aiming for a "solvable solution" in Ukraine within 100 days of Jan 20.
As long-argued in these cables, the claim that Trump would end the war within 24hrs was of course nonsense.
Everyone knew that much.
Consequently, this expected timeline extension isn’t surprising at all.
Now, Mr Kellogg is a formidable figure - a retired three-star Lieutenant General whose previous statements on Ukraine were very encouraging to hear (at one point before being named as a special envoy, Kellogg advocated for unlimited aid for Ukraine to definitively win the war.)
But he is now forced to align with Trump’s chronic desire to overpromise political accomplishments.
And in pursuit of this alignment, Kellogg is being forced to give updated timelines on expected results.
But this is a wrong move to make here: there is no good reason to offer specific timelines.
This is not a construction project - offering specific timelines comes with potentially extreme political costs, and makes it much harder for the U.S. to maintain leverage.
What if there is a need to change plans?
What if 100 days isn’t enough? (it almost certainly won’t be) - then what?
The American public will be wary of new promises after continuous ‘‘updates to the timeline”.
And what if what is strategically needed is to actually pause negotiations and to provide even more arms and resources for Ukraine to recover territories, strengthen its leverage and incentivize the Kremlin (through Russia’s worsening situation on the ground) to negotiate in earnest?
(side note: in fact, as long-argued by these cables, that is a necessary move as of today. But Trump may not think that and may want to wait and see if there are some results from negotiations first.)
How do you then explain to the American public that actually, not only is 100 days nowhere near enough, but we actually need to escalate the war?
The point is this: the incoming admin is digging itself into a completely avoidable political hole.
In addition, the signaling effect and message sent to the Kremlin is also unfavorable to U.S. leverage.
Message is this: we want this war over asap. In fact, we even have a deadline for that. What matters to us is that this conflict ends - not necessarily how it ends or under what terms.
And of course, Trump’s senior team might object to this framing - they may not be wishing to send that signal at all!
But what matters is how Putin perceives it.
All of his previous statements imply his belief in Trump wanting to see the war end quickly - even if under terms that are extremely disadvantageous to Ukraine.
And this perception drives strategy and tactics.
Putin knows that the war is a grind and comes at high costs.
He is probably also aware that the meagre gains come at exorbitant costs.
He may even accept the premise that Russia’s economy is both overheating and slowing down and that at the current trajectory and tempo, things will start to break by the end of this year.
But he also sees continuous progress.
So for Putin the ideal scenario is for Ukraine to be forced into a very bad deal: where they give up sovereignty by committing themselves to a future outside of NATO and give up more territory as well - all while receiving no concrete security guarantees and capabilities to ensure such a guarantee themselves.
Saving that scenario, Putin would also want to continue this war for a few more months without Ukraine receiving increased/escalatory military aid - so that Russia can squeeze out a few more territorial gains, and push Ukraine closer to a breaking point.
And what better way to do that than to pretend willingness to negotiate in earnest and ‘‘help’’ Trump meet his self-imposed deadline.
Hoping of course that while such negotiations take place, no additional military aid will be offered to Ukraine by Trump.
And when negotiations break down, he can then blame it on Ukraine.
And so, one can see that Putin is going for precisely that when offering to negotiate with Trump without any conditions.
Trump’s self-imposed deadlines and Putin’s willingness to ‘‘negotiate’’ are closely related.
Putin is trying to convince Trump that he is there to help Trump achieve his own political goals aimed at the domestic American audience: that he is a successful deal-maker (respected by world leaders) who successfully ended the war.
So it was not at all surprising to see the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov’s highly positive response to recent remarks by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (about arranging a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin).
Peskov stated that Putin is open to engaging with international leaders and emphasized that "no conditions are required" for such contact.
Now, Peskov also reiterated Moscow’s entrenched position on Ukraine, first outlined by Putin in June 2024 and reinforced during his December 19 "Direct Line" Q&A session.
These demands include the replacement of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government under the guise of "denazification," (Putin doesn’t consider Zelensky to be a legitimate interlocutor), the demilitarization of Ukraine, and the cession of significant territory in eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia — including areas currently outside Russian control.
In essence, these demands amount to Ukraine’s full capitulation.
Despite Moscow’s claims of willingness to hold talks, these conditions make any negotiations unlikely to produce meaningful or sustainable peace so long as Putin remains committed to such maximalist goals.
Naturally, if Putin 1) wanted to negotiate in earnest and 2) was convinced that Trump wanted a good & just deal for Ukraine (as opposed to any agreement to freeze the conflict), he wouldn’t have stuck to such unreasonable demands.
And no, unlike what many pro “peace at any cost” analysts claim, it is not possible to dismiss Putin’s negotiating positions as “deliberately high demands to ensure a stronger hand” going into a negotiation.
This is not just starting at an intentionally ludicrous demand to then settle at halfway.
Putin’s stance is fundamentally contradictory to reality - his delusions are not outright dismissed only because Russia is (for all the high costs) still advancing in the battlefield, and Ukraine is unfortunately stuck with (at least up until now) indecisive allies that do just about enough to ensure its survival - but nowhere near enough to enable its victory.
Consequently, the way to push back against such delusions is by empowering Ukraine to win on the battlefield - not pushing for any possible deal under self-imposed and completely unnecessary and arbitrary deadlines.
It is not too late for Trump’s to do just - and he might, once he exhausts all other fake opportunities to arrive at a deal.