Negotiation Ambitions*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Director of the Institute of Contemporary Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleg Karpovich offers perspectives on the settlement of the Ukraine crisis after the change of leadership in the U.S.

The approaching inauguration of Donald Trump has brought to the foreground, and reinvigorated, the topic of a possible settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. The roots for such speculation are essentially superficial.

The West, except for a few Russophobic entities, is exhausted by the Ukrainian venture. In increasingly more countries, there is growing opposition to supplying aid to Ukraine. Under Volodymr Zelenskyy, the country has fully discredited itself, both with his caddishly inadequate pronouncements and its failures on the front, as well as through the ever-growing resistance of Ukrainians themselves to the dictatorial practices of his neo-Nazi leadership.

In fact, Trump himself has frequently discussed his intention to achieve peace as quickly as possible; however, his timeline recently moved from “24 hours” to as long as six months. In the end, everything appears to be pointing toward the inevitability of diplomatic processes. Or is that true?

In reality, the situation is not quite so optimistic. For starters, we still haven’t heard anything from the future U.S. leader and his coterie regarding concrete conditions for a transition to peace talks — for which Vladimir Putin provided an outline last summer.

We don’t know whether Washington will demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the territory of the four newest members of the Russian Federation, or if will we have to push them out by force. We don’t yet know if there is agreement within his team regarding the question of Kyiv’s neutral status — not one that lasts 10 or 15 years, but one that lasts forever. Finally, we haven’t yet received an answer regarding the readiness of the U.S. to force the Ukrainian government to implement necessary domestic changes: to end its prosecution of the Russian-speaking population and the canonical Orthodox Church and to carry out denazification. There’s also no clarity regarding the question of a possible cancellation of all sanctions and restrictions introduced by the West against Russia, a breach of the basic norms of international law.

At present, it seems that the upcoming U.S. government lacks full understanding of the severity of the tasks ahead of it, as well as the unyielding nature of our position. It is highly likely that, should the talks begin, Russian diplomats will quickly get the full attention of their U.S. colleagues, who are used to perceiving the world simplistically, and who often look at issues through rose-colored glasses.

We also can’t ignore the fact that the position of anti-Russian “hawks” is still strong in the U.S.; we can be assured that they include proposed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and future national security adviser Mike Waltz. They maintain strong ties with those party colleagues in Congress who participated in the initiation of Washington’s hybrid aggression against Moscow, and who follow the ideology of the late John McCain.

If, just like during his first term, Trump loses orientation in political reality and shows naivete regarding the Russo-U.S. dialogue, the “party of war” will quickly seize the initiative.

We need to be honest with ourselves: No one can do our work for us. We alone can secure indefinite neutral status for Ukraine. And the only path to that is through reaching the goals of the special military operation.

Over the past decades we have studied our opponents carefully, and we recognized their endless attempts to deceive us while they covered their true Russophobic plans with polite smiles, stockpiled the Ukrainian regime with weapons, and surrounded Russia with military bases.

Yes, today the West is weakened and disorganized, fearful of Trump’s eccentricity, and experiencing an internal crisis. But the time will come when the U.S.-European coalition will resume the effort toward delivering strategic defeat to Moscow, and, following that, toward provoking the dissolution of our country. We mustn’t relax.

And if there are talks with some results, the danger will still remain until the final rout of the Kyiv regime. Even after we finish the job, more new challenges will appear in other areas.

Three years ago, strategies were initiated that will go on for much longer. The struggle to build a multipolar world has only just begun, and Trump’s ascension to power will bring us not victory but, at best, give us a breather — which we should use effectively.